JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



JUVENTUS MUNDI 

THE GODS AND MEN 

OF THE HEROIC AGE 
BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 




MACMILLAN AND CO, 

T869 

[All rights reserved) 






U6 




OXFORD: 

By T. Combe, M.A., E. B. Gardner, E. P. Hall, and H. Latham, M.A. 

PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 



PREFACE. 

In this work, which is mainly the produce of 
the two Recesses of 1867 and 1868, I have 
endeavoured to embody the greater part of the 
results at which I arrived in the ' Studies on 
Homer and the Homeric Age,' 1858. Those 
results however are considerably modified in 
the Ethnological, and in the Mythological, por- 
tions of the inquiry. The chief source of modi- 
fication in the former has been that a further 
prosecution of the subject with respect to the 
Phoenicians has brought out much more clearly 
and fully what I had only ventured to suspect 
or hint at, and gives them, if I am right, a 
highly influential function in forming the Greek 
nation. A fuller view of this element in its 
composition naturally acts in an important 
manner upon any estimate of Pelasgians and 
Hellenes respectively. 



VI PREFACE. 

This Phoenician influence reaches far into the 
sphere of the mythology ; and tends, as I think, 
greatly to clear the views we may reasonably 
take of that curious and interesting subject. • 

I have also greatly profited by the laborious 
and original treatise of Dr. Hahn, on Albanian 
Archaeology and Antiquities, as well as manners ; 
which, although published at Jena in 1854, was 
scarcely, if at all, known in this country in 1858. 

But, further, I have endeavoured to avoid a 
certain crudity of expression in some sections 
of the ' Olympos/ which led to misconceptions 
of my meaning with respect to the action of 
tradition (especially of sacred or Hebrew tra- 
dition) and invention respectively, in the genesis 
of the Greek mythological system. 

In dealing with the Third portion of the 
' Studies,' called Aoidos, I have contracted a 
great deal, but added and altered little. 

The immediate purpose of the former work 
was to draw out of the text of Homer, by a 
minute investigation of particulars, the results 
that it appeared to me to justify. Many of them 
were more or less new, and the process of in- 
quiry was therefore exhibited in great, perhaps 
in excessive or wearisome, detail. I have now 
felt warranted to give a larger space to deduc- 



P R E F A C E. vii 



tion, and a smaller one to minute particulars of 
inquiry, in a work which aims at offering some 
practical assistance to Homeric study in our 
Schools and Universities, and even at convey- 
ing a partial knowledge of this subject to per- 
sons who are not habitual students. Of what 
appeared directly useful for this end, I have 
consciously omitted nothing. 

I am anxious, then, to commend to inquirers, 
and to readers generally, conclusions from the 
Homeric Poems, which appear to me to be of 
great interest, with reference to the general 
history of human culture, and, in connection 
therewith, of the Providential government of 
the world. But I am much more anxious to 
encourage and facilitate the access of educated 
persons to the actual contents of the text. 
The amount and variety of these contents have 
not even yet been fully appreciated. The 
delight received from the Poems has possibly 
had some influence in disposing the generality 
of readers to rest satisfied with their enjoyment. 
The doubts cast upon their origin must have 
assisted in producing and fostering a vague in- 
stinctive indisposition to laborious examination. 
The very splendour of the poetry dazzles the 
eye as with whole sheets of light, and may often 

b2 



Vlll P R E F A C E, 



seem almost to give to analysis the character 
of vulgarity or impertinence. 

My main object, then, in this, and in the 
former work, has been to encourage, or, if I 
may so say, to provoke, the close textual study 
of the Poet, as the condition of real progress in 
what is called the Homeric question, and as a 
substitute for that loose and second-hand 
method, not yet wholly out of vogue in this 
country, which seeks for information about 
Homer anywhere rather than in Homer him- 
self. 

In further prosecution of this purpose, I have 
begun, and carried forward at such intervals as 
I could make my own, another task. With 
patient toil, which applied to most authors 
would have been drudgery, I have tried to 
draw out, and to arrange in the most accessible 
form, resembling that of a Dictionary, what may 
be termed the body, or earthy and tangible 
part, of the contents of Homer. To a dis- 
section of such a kind, the ethereal spirit 
cannot be submitted. This analysis will be 
separately published, so soon as other calls 
upon my time may permit. It must not be 
supposed that so homely a production aspires 
to exhibit Homer as a poet. Yet it exhibits 



PREFACE. IX 



him as a chronicler and as an observer ; it 
helps to give an idea of his power by showing 
some part at least of the copious materials 
with which he executed his great synthesis, the 
first, and also the best, composition of an Age, 
the most perfect ' form and body of a time,' that 
ever has been achieved by the hand of man. 

Like Colonel Mure, I am convinced that the 
one thing wanted in order to a full solution of 
what is called the Homeric question is know- 
ledge of the text. In an aggregate of 27,000 
lines, as full of infinitely varied matter (to use 
a familiar phrase) as an egg is full of meat, 
this is not so commonplace an accomplishment 
as might at first sight be supposed. I have 
striven to attain it ; yet, as I know, with very 
partial success. And I do not hesitate to say, 
with the productions of some recent writers 
and critics on the Poet in my mind, that the 
reading public ought to be very wary in accept- 
ing unverified statements of what is or is not 
in Homer. I eschew the invidious task of 
illustrating this proposition from the pages of 
others : possibly it might receive some illus- 
tration from my own. 

I have felt great embarrassment, in common 
I suppose with many more, in consequence of 



X PREFACE, 

the unsettled and transitionary state of our 
rules and practice with respect to Greek names, 
and to the Latin forms of them. 

Upon the whole, not without misgiving, but 
not without consideration, I have acted upon 
the belief that we cannot permanently fall 
back into the system which we were content 
until half a century ago to follow, and which 
Mr. Mitford and Mr. Grote assailed in com- 
mon ; that we cannot well stand where we 
are ; and that we should, if possible, in this 
as in all matters, try to make preparation for 
the future, and make approaches at least to- 
wards a durable system. 

First, then, I follow many high authorities 
in adopting generally the names of the Greek 
deities and mythological personages, instead of 
the Latin ones. 

Secondly, with respect to names which have 
in no way become familiar to our ears or been 
domesticated in the English tongue, instead of 
the Latin forms and terminations, I adopt 
commonly the Greek ; and say Iasos, Acrisios, 
Eurumachos, instead of Iasus, Acrisius, Eury- 
machus : as also Achaioi, Hippemolgoi, Loto- 
phagoi, Phaiakes, instead of Achaians, Hippe- 
molgi, Lotophagi, Phaeacians. 



PREFACE, Xl 



But I have usually followed the old custom 
in cases where Greek words have been, so to 
speak, translated, so that the English ear has 
become thoroughly accustomed to the render- 
ing, whether it be effected by the Latin form, 
as Cyprus for Kv7rpos, or by an English one, 
as Rhodes for Rhodos. 

Yet a case like the first of these exhibits the 
practical mischief of a somewhat degenerate 
system ; for the name Kupros would, more 
readily than Cyprus, have suggested the fact, 
that copper owes its name to that island, which 
first afforded to Europe and the Mediterranean 
a plentiful supply of so primitive and important 
a metal. In this matter of names I am less 
consistent than Mr. Grote ; and less bold, for I 
have not the same title to expect obedience. 
I can only say that my practice is accommo- 
dated, as far as I am able, to a state of transi- 
tion, and that I have no doubt it is open to 
criticism in detail, even from those who may 
accept the general rule. 

Lastly, I have in many cases written a Greek 
word in Roman type. I know not whether it will 
or will not, at some time, be found practicable to 
serve the purposes of all languages by one and 
the same character. But the general knowledge 






Xll PREFACE. 



of the relationship of tongues, and of particular 
languages, is increasing; and it may be both 
of interest and of use to the English reader, 
though unacquainted with Greek, to know the 
form and body of the words discussed in the 
text, when this advantage can be given without 
seriously distorting the words themselves. 



Hawarden, North Wales, 
October, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 
Introduction. 

PAGE 

Popular appreciation of the Homeric works ... i 

Viewed too much through later traditions ... i 

The Author unknown as a Person 2 

Date at which he lived 3 

Place of his birth and residence 6 

The poetry of Homer historic 7 

Theurgy of the Poems self-consistent .... 9 
Important internal evidence as to the historic character 

of the Poems 10 

Uncertainty respecting them 11 

The ' Hymns ' 12 

Arguments of those who support a dual authorship dis- 
cussed 13 

Iliad and Odyssey compared 17 

Text of the Poems discussed 18-26 

Comparative antiquity of Homer and Hesiod . . . 26 
Evidence of Homer in relation to his age . . . 27 
Discrepancy between Homeric and Post-Homeric tra- 
dition 28 

Conclusion concerning the Text of the Poet . . . 3° 

CHAPTER II. 

The Three Great Appellatives. 

The f Greeks ' of the Troica were Achaians „ . . 3 2 

Pre-Hellehic races — Pelasgoi 3 2 






CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

Introduction. 

PAGE 

Popular appreciation of the Homeric works ... i 

Viewed too much through later traditions ... i 

The Author unknown as a Person 2 

Date at which he lived 3 

Place of his birth and residence 6 

The poetry of Homer historic 7 

Theurgy of the Poems self-consistent .... 9 
Important internal evidence as to the historic character 

of the Poems 10 

Uncertainty respecting them 11 

The ' Hymns ' . . . 12 

Arguments of those who support a dual authorship dis- 
cussed 13 

Iliad and Odyssey compared 17 

Text of the Poems discussed 18-26 

Comparative antiquity of Homer and Hesiod . . . 26 
Evidence of Homer in relation to his age . . . 27 
Discrepancy between Homeric and Post-Homeric tra- 
dition 28 

Conclusion concerning the Text of the Poet . . . 30 

CHAPTER II. 

The Three Great Appellatives. 

The f Greeks ' of the Troica were Achaians . . . 32 

Pre-Hellenic races— Pelasgoi . . . . . . 3 2 



XIV 



CONTENTS. 



Designations of the Greeks of the Iliad .... 
Instances of chronological succession of Homeric names 
' Argeioi ' used as a national designation and in a local 

sense 

The Danaoi 

Derivation of Homeric national or tribal names 

Homer's unwilling testimony to the foreign origin of 

Greek Houses 

Genealogy of the race of Danaos 
Post-Homeric tradition with regard to Danaos 
Conclusions as to the Danaoi .... 

Argeioi . 

Local use of the word 

Poetic and archaic uses of it . 
Application of the territorial name Argos 
Common term in three distinct territorial names 

Four uses of in Homer 

Derivation of Homeric names of countries and places 

Uses of the word ' argos ' 

The derivative Argeioi 

This name belongs properly to the commonality 
The third Appellative : Achaioi 
Epithets applied to the name Achaioi 

Force of the word ' dios ' 

Instances of the use of the appellative Achaioi . 

The Myrmidons 

Epithet ' Panachaioi ' 

Conclusion respecting the use of the Three Appellatives 



33 

34 

35 
36 

37 

38 
40 
40 
42 
42 
43 
44 
45 
50 
51 
52 
53 
55 
59 
59 
61 
62 
63 
65 
69 
70 



CHAPTER III. 

The Pelasgoi. 



Classification of the Homeric testimony concerning the 

Pelasgoi 72 

Wide extension of the Pelasgoi 72 

' Pelasgic Zeus ' 73 

Thessaly a Pelasgic country 73 



CONTENTS. XV 



Thracians 74 

Kaukones 75 

Epithets given to the Pelasgians 75 

The Larisse of Homer 77 

Other heads of Homeric evidence concerning the Pelasgoi 77 

Connection between Arcadians and Pelasgoi . . . 78 

The Ionians 80 

Local, not personal, relation between Athene and Athens 82 

Erectheus probably a Pelasgian 83 

Evidence as to the Pelasgian character of Attica in early- 
times (Ionians) 84 

Pelasgian element in Thessaly 86 

'IasonArgos' 87 

Marks of a Pelasgian character in the population of Crete 89 

The Five Races domesticated in Greece . . . . 89 

Eteocretes and Kudones 89 

The Leleges 90 

Pelasgian occupation of Epiros 91 

Etymology of the Pelasgian name 92 

Difference of race and rank among the Greek population 94 
The Pelasgian element in the Greek language . . . 95 
Lists of words (supposed to be of Pelasgian origin) com- 
mon to the Greek and Latin languages ... 96 

I. Objects of Inanimate Nature .... 96 

II. Trees, Plants . ... . . . 96 

ill. Animated Nature 97 

iv. Objects connected with Food . . . . 97 

v. Related to Out-door Labour . . . . 97 

vi. Navigation 97 

vii. Dwellings 98 

viii. Clothing . . . . . . . . 98 

ix. The Human Body 98 

x. The Family . . . ... . 98 

xi. Society 9 8 

xii. General Ideas gg 

xiii. Adjectives of Common Use .... 99 

Scant stock of words relating to religion .... 100 

Words relating (1) to war, (2) to navigation, (3) to metals 100 



XVI CONTENTS. 



Distinction with regard to names of persons, &c. . . 102 
Extra-Homeric evidence of the wide extension of the 

Pelasgoi 106 

CHAPTER IV. 

Hellas. 

The word ' Hellas ' and its derivatives . . . .109 
Phthie ; the phrase ' Pelasgic Argos ' . . . .111 

The designation ' Panhellenes ' 113 

Kephallenes 114 

Helloi or Selloi: the Aspirate and Sigma interchangeable 115 
Route of the Hellic tribes into Greece . . . .117 

CHAPTER V. 
The Phoenicians and the Egyptians. 

Minos 118 

His Phoenician character 119 

Phoenician tongue probably spoken in Crete . . . 120 

Daidalos — Kadmos 122 

Important works of art obtained from the Phoenicians . 123 

Dependence of the Greeks on the Phoenicians (ship Argo) 124 

The Egyptian Thebes 125 

Conclusion respecting the significance of the word ' Phoe- 
nicia' in Homer 129 

Art of writing introduced by Phoenicians . . . .130 
Art of building with hewn stone probably introduced by 

them 131 

The people of Scherie (Corfu), of Phoenician stock . . 132 

Their games 132 

Fine Art, in Homer, proceeded from a Phoenician source 133 
Respective contributions of Pelasgians and Hellenes to 

the aggregate Greek nation 134 

Possible personal medium between Greece and Phoenicia . 134 

Were the Aiolids Phoenician ? 135 

Achaian invasion of Egypt 144 



CONTENTS. Xvii 



CHAPTER VI. 

On the Title 'Anax Andron.' 

Substantial distinction between titles and epithets descrip- 
tive of station or office 149 

Title ' Anax Andron,' to whom applied . . . .151 

I. Agamemnon 153 

His extraction: passage concerning the Sceptre 154 
Simultaneous rise of the Achaian race and of the 

House of Pelops ...... 156 

Tantalos 156 

Niobe; Pelops 157 

Achaians a Thessalian race . . . . 159 
Title (' Anax Andr5n ') anterior to the constitu- 
tion of Achaian society 160 

II. Anchises, and in. .Eneas . . . . t6o 

Position of the Helloi and Dardanians severally . 161 
Why the title is applied to Anchises and iEneas, 

but not given to Priam or any of his family . 161 
Absence of Anchises from the Trojan Council ; 

his sovereignty 162 

JEneas : jealousy between him and the house of 

Priam 163 

Pointed use of the phrase 'Anax Andron' . . 164 

iv. Augeias . . . . . . . .165 

Ruled over Elis 165 

His extraction and descent 166 

Ephure, a town of Elis 166 

v. Euphetes . . . . . . . . 167 

King of Ephure : distinction between the towns 

so named 168 

vi. Eumelos ........ 169 

Rules at Pherai ; an Aiolid . . . . .169 

Summing up of the Homeric evidence concerning 

the phrase ' Anax Andron ' . . . .170 



XV111 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 

Homer the maker, not of poems alone, but of a language, 

a nation, and a religion 

Contrast between Homer and the Hesiodic Theogony 
Variegated aspect of Hellenic religion ; reasons for this 

Instances 

Modes of reconciliation or adjustment 

Debasement of the Olympian system 

Its specific principle humanitarian .... 

It wanted the supports of a hierarchy and of sacred books 

Actual operation of the Hellenic Theo-mythology . 

The later religion in relation to philosophers and legis 

lators 

Plato's reproaches against Homer's treatment of the god: 

unfounded ; cases in point 

Materials supplied as the base of Homeric religion . 

The five great deities 

Homer's mode of dealing with the elder gods . 
Vestiges in the Olympian system of Elemental Worship 
Nature-gods generally treated as subterranean . 

River-worship local 

Olympian system appropriates the materials of the older 

elemental one 

Homeric mythology ought to be severed from the schemes 
of (i) N ature- worship ; (2) Roman mythology ; (3) 

scheme of classical Greece 

Homeric polity framed on the human model . 

Instances of 

Functions of the deities 

Classification of the Olympian personages in Homer . 
Limitations and liabilities of the subordinate gods 
Correspondence between certain features of the Olympian 
system and the Hebraic traditions .... 

The Messiah 

Theories as to the origin of heathen religions . 



174 
175 
176 
177 
178 
180 
181 
181 
182 



185 
186 
187 
187 
188 
190 
191 

192 



193 

193 
194 

195 

198 
199 

200 
203 
204 



CONTENTS. 



XIX 



Other Homeric correspondences with Hebrew tradition . 207 
The highest conception of deity does not exclude the 

element of fraud , 208 

Grand distinction between the Homeric and the later 

systems 211 

Homer's wide notion of the gods as governing all mankind 212 
Collective action of the Olympian deities . . . .213 
No instance of a married deity, save Zeus . . . 213 

Element of deontology ; will and ought . „ . .215 
Classification of the Di majores . . , . . .216 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS 



Section 1. Zeus 

Five different capacities ascribed to Zeus 

1. The Pelasgian Zeus 

2. The Divine Zeus . 

His universal supremacy . 
His limitations and liabilities . 

3. 4. The Olympian Zeus, and the Lord of the Air 

Omnipotence not conceived of by Homer 
Headship of Zeus ; the arbiter among the god 
His sole and supreme responsibility . 
Aristocratic character of the Olympian polity 
5. Zeus the type of anthropomorphism 

Individual character of Zeus of a low order 
Not, however, devoid of affections . 
The masterpiece of Homeric mythology with 
regard to the humanising element 
Section 11. Here . 

Of all deities the most national 
Special characteristics of; she 

Odyssey 
Called 'Argeian Here' 
Her rank in Olympos . 
Interpretation of the myth of the deposition of Kronos 




219 

220 
221 
223 
224 
225 
227 
228 
229 
230 
231 
232 
233 
234 

234 

234 
234 

235 
236 

237 
238 



XX CONTENTS. 



The function of Here as regulator of birth . . 239 

Vestige of the prerogative of Here as a Nature-Power 241 

Section 111. Poseidon 241 

His position and rank 242 

Not an elemental deity ; Nereus the true sea-god . 243 

Special functions of Poseidon 245 

Legends relating to him ; their character . . .246 
His province in the Outer- World . . . .246 
His supremacy in the Odyssey working, rather than 

abstract 248 

Prevalence of Poseidonian worship among the Phoe- 
nicians 249 

The Trident; relation to some tradition of a Trinity 250 

Cyclops, children of Poseidon 250 

The Phoenician origin of Poseidon supplies a key to 

his position and attributes 251 

Section iv. Aidoneus 252 

Probably a Nature-Power of an older Theogony . 253 

His character and functions 253 

The ' Zeus of the Underworld ' , . . . 254 

Section v. Leto 257 

Epithets given to her 257 

Her circumscribed action 257 

High ascriptions of her dignity 258 

Etymology of the name 259 

Probable record of the Hebrew tradition respecting 

the Mother of the Deliverer . . . .260 

Section vi. Demeter 261 

Homeric evidence respecting her . . . .261 

Her share in the old tradition of Nature-worship . 263 

Section vn. Dione 264 

A wife of Zeus ; mentioned in one passage only . . 264 

Testimony of Hesiod 264 

A Nature-Power 265 

Section vin. Athene and Apollo . 266 
Their position in Olympos a hopeless solecism, if 

viewed apart from Hebrew traditions . . . 267 



CONTENTS. XXI 



Relation of rank between Here and Athene , . 268 

Dignity of Apollo 269 

Correspondence of Homer with the Messianic tradition 

of the Logos and the Son of the Woman . . 270 
Superior sanctitas of Athene and Apollo . . .270 

They are the two great Agents 271 

Uniform identity of will between Zeus and Apollo . 273 
Apollo the defender of heaven and deliverer of the 

immortals 274 

Functions of these two deities encroach upon the pro- 
vinces of other divinities 275 

Jointly invoked 276 

No local limit to their worship 276 

They are independent of limitations of place . . 278 
Omnipresent; prayer addressed to them from all places 279 
Exempt from physical infirmity or need in general 
Attributes of bulk ; locomotion 
Apollo and Athene administer powers otherwise re 
ferred to Zeus ...... 

Both exercise vast power over external nature . 
Both possess lofty moral excellence and purity . 
Distinctive functions of Apollo, severing him from 

Athene 

The ministry of death 

Hellenic preservation of the element of Hebrew 
tradition 



Section ix. Hephaistos 

One of the seven astral deities of the East 
Dual course of tradition relating to Hephaistos . 

The Charites 

Matchless deity of Hephaistos .... 
The architect of the palaces of the gods . 



Section x. Ares 

* In point of strength divine, in point of mind and 

heart simply animal ' 

Represents the idea of raw courage . 

Instances of his action 

c 



279 
280 

281 
282 
284 

285 

285 

288 

289 
289 
290 
29/2 
292 
293 

294 

294 
295 
296 



XXI 1 



CONTENTS. 



Section xi. Hermes 

His part in the Iliad secondary . 
Instances of his agency .... 
Idea of concealment inheres in his character 
His probable connection with the Phoenicians 
An agent rather than a mere messenger 
His name Argeiphontes 



Section xn. Artemis . 

In the main a reflection of Apollo 
Relation of, to the Moon-goddess 
Shares with Apollo the ministry of 
Her agency ubiquitous in character 
Confers beauty (of figure) . 
Epithet ayvrj and its significancy 



death 



Section xm. Persephone 
Epithets applied to her t 
Represents a mixture of 

traditions . 
Co-ruler with A'idoneus 
Etymology of the name 
The Persian race 



Pelasgic and of Eastern 



in the Homeric 



Section xiv. Aphrodite 

Her position and several functions 

mythology .... 
Local indications of her worship 
Etymology of the name 

Section xv. Dionusos 

Obscurity of traditions concerning him 

No clearly divine act assigned to him 

Recital concerning Lucourgos .... 

Probable sign of his worship in the Odyssey 

Worship of Dionusos recent ; and opposed on intro 

duction 

He is placed within the Phoenician circle . 
To be regarded probably as a deified mortal 



CONTENTS. 



XX111 



Section xvi. Helios, or the Sun 
His personality .... 
His appearance in (a) the Iliad, (b) the Odyssey 
Theft of the Oxen of the Sun . 
This legend of Phoenician origin 
The Sun an Eastern deity 
Incorporation of the traditions of Apollo 
of the Sun .... 



Section xvn. Hebe 

Character of her offices 
Expresses the idea of youth 

Section xvm. Themis . 

A member of the Olympian court 
Signification of the name . 



Section xix. Paieon 
His function as healer 
Relation between Paieon and Apollo 
The paian or hymn to Apollo 

Section xx. Iris .... 
Instances of her office as Messenger 
The name of the rainbow; and 

tradition 
Her agency 



to Peleus 
double relation of Thetis 



Section xxi. Thetis 
Her origin elemental 
Her vast influence 
Her prayer to Zeus . 
Etymology of the name 
Character of her marriage 
Pelasgian worship of Zeus 
Instances of her agency 

The reconciler between the conflicting creeds . 
Her influence with the gods grounded on obligation 
Principal particulars respecting her . 
Epithets applied to her .... 
Later traditions appear but arbitrary comment 
c 2 



with those 



the 



Hebrew 



321 
321 
321 

322 
322 
323 

324 

325 
325 
326 

327 
327 
327 

328 
328 
329 
33o 

33o 
33o 

33i 
332 

334 
334 
334 
335 
335 
336 
337 
338 
338 

339 

340 

34i 
342 



XXIV CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Further Sketch and Moral Aspects of the 
Olympian System. 

I. Various Orders of Preternatural Beings . 344 

1. The Nature-Powers 344 

2. The Minor Nature-Powers . . . * .345 

3 . Mythological Personages of the Outer or Phoenician 

Sphere 346 

4. The Rebellious Powers 347 

5. Ministers of Doom 347 

6. Poetical Impersonations 348 

II. The Erinues 348 

The three chief recognised descriptions of preter- 
natural force 348 

Action of the Erinues 350 

Their functions 351 

Etymology of the name 354 

III. Ate the Temptress 354 

Her place in Homer 354 

Character of her temptations 355 

IV. Fate or Doom 356 

Distinction between the words conveying the idea — 

Ker, Moira, Aisa, &c. 356 

V. Animal Worship 359 

Sanctity attaching to the Oxen of the Sun . . 359 
Other traces of animal worship . . . .360 

Animal Sacrifice 361 

VI. On the Modes of Approximation between 

the Divine and the Human Nature . 361 
Elements of the system of deification of mortals 

discernible in Homer 362 

Divine filiation 365 

1 Zeus-born ' princes 368 

Explanation of this title 369 

Four channels of approach between the human and 

divine natures 370 



CONTENTS. 



XXV 



VII. The Homeric View of the Future State . 
Three-fold division of the Future World . 

VIII. The Olympian System in its Results . 
History of the human race before Christ is the history 

of a preparation for His Advent .... 
Character and vitality of the Olympian system . 
A precursor of Christianity 



37i 

372 

374 

374 
375 
377 






CHAPTER X. 

Ethics of the Heroic Age. 

Section 1. General outline of the moral character of the 
Homeric Greeks 

Heracles 

Moral force of Religion .... 
Voice of Conscience .... 

Homicide 

The weak point of tenderness for fraud 
Idea of sin implied in Homer 
The Homeric view of patience . 

Virtue of justice 

Virtue of self-restraint . 
The model spirit of moderation, the to ueaov 
Implacability regarded as unequivocally vicious 
Extremest forms of depravity unknown 
Domestic relations ...... 

The Poet's admiration for Beauty 

The delicacy of Homer .... 

Sketch of Greek life in the heroic age 

Section 11. Position held by women 
No trace of polygamy 
Concubinage 

Relations of youth and maiden 
Picture of Greek marriage 
Employments of women 



37» 

380 
381 

383 
384 

38s 
387 
389 
390 

39i 
393 
393 
395 
396 
398 
400 
402 

405 
406 
407 
408 
410 
411 



XXVI 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XI. 



Polity of the Heroic Age. 

Similitude between Homeric and British ideas 

Reverence for kings 

No * balance of forces' 

The kings 

Personal attributes of the king .... 

His fourfold character 

Agamemnon a 'King of kings' .... 
Transactions of the Army decided in the Assemblies 
Ranks traceable in the army .... 
Composition of the Council .... 
Importance of Power of Speech 
Majority and minority ..... 
The Tis, or Public Opinion .... 
Chief component parts of Greek society . 
Representation of the state of society in Ithaca 
Absence of written 'law' — The Oath 
The Xeinos or Xenos . . . . . 
Sources for supplying slaves .... 
The medium of exchange .... 

Leading political ideas of the Poems 
Bonds cementing Greek society 



4i3 
414 

4i5 
416 
418 

424 
427 
428 
429 
430 
43i 
434 
436 
438 
440 
442 
443 
444 
446 

447 
448 



CHAPTER XII. 

Resemblances and Differences between the Greeks 
and the Trojans. 

Double ethnical relation 451 

Religion 452 

Prevalence of Nature-worship in Troy . . . .453 
Sacerdotal institutions and ritual forms . . . • 455 

Superior morality of the Greeks 458 

Trojan tendency to sensual excess 460 

Polygamy of Priam 460 

Relation of Priam to subordinate countries . . .463 
Trojan Assembly 464 



CONTENTS. 



XXV11 



CHAPTER XIII. 
Geography of Homer. 



Section i. The Catalogue 

Genealogies of the Greek Catalogue . 

The Greek territory divided into three circles and 

a fourth irregular figure 
Greek and Trojan Catalogues . 



Section n. The Plain of Troy 
Leading topical points 
Discussion of Homer's description 

Section in. The Outer Geography 

Data for an Homeric map of the Outer Geography 
Indications of Homer's belief in a great sea occupy 

ing the heart of the European continent 
Stages of the Voyages of Odysseus 



466 

467 

467 
468 

470 
470^ 
472 

474 
477 

479 
4H 






CHAPTER XIV. 
Plots, Characters, and Similes. 

Section 1. The Plot of the Poems; especially of the 

Iliad 490 

Section n. Some Characters of the Poems. 

1. Achilles 495 

2. Odysseus 497 

3. Agamemnon 501 

4. Diomed and Ajax 503, 

5. Helen 504 

6. Hector 508 

7. Paris 510 

Section ill. The Similes of the Poems . . . 512 



XXV111 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XV. 



Miscellaneous. 

Section I. The Idea of Beauty in Homer 
Personal Beauty, and Beauty of Landscape 

Section II. The Idea of Art in Homer 

Works of Art 

Material of Art 

Homer's delineation of Art 
Egyptian and Assyrian schools of Art 

Section in. Physics of Homer 

Section iv. Metals in Homer 

Section v. Measure of Value 

Section vi. Use of Number in Homer . 

Section vn. The Sense of Colour in Homer 



516 

518 

520 
52a 
521 

523 
524 
525 
528 

533 
535 
539 



CHAPTER I. 

Introduction. 

If, as the general opinion holds, the Iliad and 
the Odyssey are the works of an individual poet 
(whom we term Homer), they are probably, as a con- 
nected whole, the oldest in the world ; though a few 
of the Books of Scripture, and, in the opinion of 
some, a portion of the Vedas, may perhaps lay claim 
to a higher antiquity. They unquestionably contain 
a mass of information respecting man in a primitive 
or very early stage of society, which has not even 
yet been thoroughly digested, and such as is nowhere 
else to be found. They have also, through the inter- 
vention of the Greek and then of the Roman civilisa- 
tion, for both of which they form the original literary 
base, entered far more largely than any other book, 
except the Holy Scriptures, into the formation of 
modern thought and life. 

A main reason, which has prevented mankind 
from profiting to the full by these invaluable works, 
appears to have been this ; that, except for the purposes 
of purely poetical appreciation, they have been viewed 



B 



1 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

far too much through the medium of later traditions, 
of the productions of the classic ages of Greece and 
Rome, and especially of the great epic of Virgil ; and 
the multiform features of the picture which he draws 
have thus been confounded with the representations 
of much later, and in many respects very different 
ages. 

While the works of Homer have exercised an in- 
fluence which has been greater than those of any 
other poet, and which is rising apparently at the 
present time, nothing is known of his person. His 
blindness, but only in mature and late life, is allow- 
ably conjectured from the fact that he has drawn a 
careful and sympathising picture of the blind minstrel 
Demodocos in Scherie 1 (now Corfu), and has made 
him more conspicuous than any other Bard mentioned 
in the Poems. Absorbed in his subject, the Poet never 
refers to himself: in half-a-dozen passages the personal 
pronoun is used — c Tell me, O Muses 2 , 5 and the like ; 
but it is a mere grammatical form, never specially 
pointed to his own individuality. Of his character 
we can only judge as far as different passages of the 
Poems may enable us to trace his personal sympathies 
in their tone and colour. The conjecture as to his 
blindness is indeed in accordance with a passage 
which Thucydides 3 quotes as his from the Hymn to 
Apollo, and which mentions it: but the weight of 
this evidence depends much more on the beauty and 
pathos of the verses, than on the fact that the great 
historian treats it as by Homer; since he does not 
speak in the character of a witness, and the reference 

1 Od. viii. 64. 2 Od. i. 1. ' 3 iii. 104. 



I.'J INTRODUCTION. 



to Chios as the place of his residence is a circumstance 
calculated to excite strong suspicion. 

With respect to the date at which Homer lived, 
nothing is known, except it be by recent and as yet 
scarcely recognised discovery 1 , from sources extrinsic 
to the Poems. Herodotus places him at four hundred 
years before himself, in the ninth century before Christ. 
This would bring him nearly to the epoch of Lycurgus. 
But the state of society and manners in Greece de- 
picted by him is far anterior to all that is connected 
with the name of that legislator; and betokens not 
only priority, but long priority, to the historic period, 
which is commonly said to begin with the Olympiad 
of Corcebus, B.C. 776. The date of 1183 B.C. is 
fixed by Eratosthenes for the fall of Troy : but it has 
long been known to be no more than conjectural 2 . 
In my opinion, that event is quite as likely to have 
been older, as to have been more recent. But there 
are in reality no fully acknowledged measures of time 
applicable to the decision of the question. Homer 
alone seems to afford us, for his own age, any means 
of estimating, however rudely, the lapse of years. 
His only chronology is found in genealogies, given 
by him in considerable numbers, and in singular cor- 
respondence with one another. But this knowledge, 
if authentic, stands as an island separated from us by 
a sea of unknown breadth. We have as yet no mode 
of establishing a clear relation of time between it and 
the historic era. 

The Poems afford, however, partial means of esti- 
mating the date of Homer, relatively to the War of Troy. 

1 See Chap. V. on Phoenicia and Egypt. 

2 Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, i. 123. 

B 2 



4 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. 

He virtually states, that he was not an eye-witness 
of the War 1 . Poseidon 2 prophesies that the grand- 
children of iEneas shall reign in Troas; and it is 
fairly argued that the Poet would not have ventured 
on the prediction, if he had not lived to see its entire 
or partial accomplishment. A grandson of iEneas 
may well have reigned in Troas within fifty or even 
forty years of the fall of the city ; and a son within a 
much shorter period. Arguments for a greater interval 
have indeed been founded on the passages, in which the 
Poet contrasts the might of the Troic heroes with the 
lower standard of his own time. But a ready answer 
is surely found in the fact that Nestor, in the First 
Tliad 3 , draws a somewhat similar contrast between 
the heroes of his youth, and those of the Greek army 
before Troy. Figure is, in truth, the main element 
in all such comparisons. A third argument has been 
founded on the passage, in which Here observes to 
Zeus that he is free to destroy the cities she loves 
the best — Argos, Sparta, and Mycenae 4 . Hence, it is 
thought, Homer must have lived after the Dorian 
conquest. But (i) we do not find that any of these 
cities were destroyed at that epoch; and (2) had 
Homer lived in an age posterior to that great revo- 
lution, he must have betrayed his knowledge of it not 
in one equivocal passage, but in many, and by a mul- 
titude of signs of later manners. (3) The Dorian con- 
quest had the immediate effect of reducing Mycense to 
obscurity, while it left Argos and Sparta at the head of 
Greece ; and it would be strange indeed that Homer, 
if he had witnessed it, should join the three in a single 

1 II. ii. 486. 2 11. xx. 307. 

3 II. i. 260-272. 4 II. iv. 51. 



I.] INTRODUCTION. 



category, and take no notice of the distinction. From 
the manner in which the cities are mentioned, we may 
indeed rather say, that the passage affords an argu- 
ment to show that the Poet lived before that epoch, 
and not after it. (4) It is urged also that Homer 
mentions riding on horseback, and the trumpet, as in 
use, but not as in use during the War. But in the 
Tenth Iliad, Odysseus and Diomed ride the horses of 
Rhesos ; and the trumpet appears to be mentioned only 
as used to summon a beleaguered place on the arrival 
of the enemy 1 . On the other hand, Homer seems again 
to glance at his own case in the words addressed by 
Odysseus to Demodocos, respecting his Trojan lay: 
c You have sung the Achaian woe right well, as if 
you had yourself been a witness, or else had heard it 
from one V The idea seems here to be conveyed with 
distinctness, that either actual experience or, at the 
least, the evidence of those who had possessed it, was a 
condition of true excellence in historic song. Again, 
the elaborate plan by which, in the Twelfth Iliad, Homer 
accounts for the disappearance of the defensive work 
of the Greeks, seems to show that the interval since 
the War must have been short, for if it had been long, 
natural causes would have done more to account for it. 
A cardinal argument for placing the date of the Poet 
near that of his subject is, that he describes manners 
from first to last with the easy, natural, and intimate 
knowledge of a contemporary observer. He is in 
truth in visible identity with the age, the altering but 
not yet vanished age, of which he sings, while there is 
a very broad interval of tone and feeling between him 
and the very nearest of all that follow him. And even 
1 II. xviii. 219, 220. 2 Od. viii. 489-491. 



6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the difference to be observed in the shade of style and 
of manner between the Iliad and the Odyssey, is just 
such as would be fairly due, in part to the difference of 
the subjects, and in part to the shock of those altera- 
tions, which were evidently caused in Greece by the 
absence of its kings and leaders, during a prolonged 
period, at the War. I conjecture, without pretending to 
do more, that Homer may well have been born before, 
or during, the War; and that he probably was familiar, 
during the years of his maturity, with those who had 
fought in it. For treating Homer as an Asiatic Greek, 
who lived after the migrations eastward, there is really 
neither reason, nor trustworthy authority. 

As to the place of Homer's birth and residence, 
we are yet more in the dark than about his date. 
The testimony of the Poems is both slight and equi- 
vocal ; and no other testimony is authentic. In one 
passage he says the Locrians dwell beyond, or it may 
mean over against, Eubcea 1 , on the East of Greece; 
in another, the Echinades and Doulichion 2 are beyond, 
or over against, Elis, on the West of Greece. The 
second passage seems to destroy any such inference as 
Wood, in his ingenious Essay 3 , drew from the first. 
On the other hand, morning comes to Homer over 
the sea 4 ; an expression which seems to contemplate 
a c whereabout 5 on the West of the iEgean. The cha- 
racter given to Zephuros, the North- West wind, varies 
according as it is a sea-wind, which it is in the descrip- 
tion of the Elysian Fields ; or a mountain- wind, when 
it is described as charged with snow 5 : and no inference 



1 II. ii. 535. 2 II. ii. 626. 3 p. 8. (First Ed. in 1775.) 
4 II. xxiii. 227. 5 Od. iv. 566-568; xix. 206. 



.] INTRODUCTION. 



can be drawn from it to show that Homer lived on 
any particular coast. Every line of the Poems bears 
testimony to the fact that Homer was not derivatively, 
but immediately and intensely, Greek. Contented with 
accumulated evidence of nationality in the highest 
sense, we must leave the question of the precise birth- 
place and dwelling of the Poet in the darkness in 
which we find it. 

It cannot be too strongly affirmed, that the song 
of Homer is historic song. Indeed he has probably 
told us more about the world and its inhabitants at 
his own epoch, than any historian that ever lived. 

But the primary and principal meaning of the asser- 
tion is, that he is historical as to manners, customs, 
ideas, and institutions : whereas events and names are 
the pegs on which they hang. It is with respect, not 
to the dry bones of fact, but to all that gives them 
life, beauty, and meaning, that he has supplied us with 
a more complete picture of the Greek, or, as he would 
probably say, Achaian, people of his time, than any 
other author, it might almost be said than any number 
of authors, have supplied with reference to any other 
age and people. 

There are however very strong presumptions that 
Homer is also historical with respect to his chief 
events and persons. For, i. It is the chief business 
of the Poet or Bard, as such, in early times to record 
facts, while he records them in the forms of beauty 
supplied by his art. 2. Especially of the Bard who 
lives near the events of which he professes to sing. 
3. It is plain that Homer so viewed the Poet's office, 
from the nature of the lays which he introduces ; from 
his representing to us Achilles engaged in singing the 



8 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

deeds of heroes 1 • and from his saying that the gods 
ordained the War of Troy that it might be sung to 
all posterity 2 j with other like sentiments. 4. The 
Poems were always viewed as historical by the Greeks. 
5. If fictitious in their basis, they would have been 
far less likely to acquire and maintain such com- 
manding interest. 6. The structure and tenour of the 
Poems throughout indicate the highest regard to na- 
tional tastes and prepossessions : and these tastes were 
manifestly very strong as to all matters of tradition 
and hereditary fame. Of this we have an indication 
which may be taken by way of example, in the question 
usually put to a stranger, who are his parents ? 7. The 
number, and the remarkable self-consistency of the 
Genealogies given in the Poems, appear almost of them- 
selves to prove an historic design. 8. The Catalogue 
in the Second Iliad implies a purpose with reference 
to the nation, much the same as that indicated by the 
Genealogies with respect to particular persons or famU 
lies. 9. The Aristeia of the greater chieftains re- 
spectively, in the intermediate Books of the Iliad, are 
thought to load the movement of the Poem ; but they 
receive a natural and simple explanation from the 
tendency of a Poet at once itinerant and historical 
to distribute carefully the honours of the War between 
the different States and Heroes. 10. A considerable 
number of the minute particulars given, especially in 
the Iliad, are of a nature to derive their interest wholly 
from recording matter of fact ; such for instance as the 
small stature of Tudeus, the mare driven by Menelaos, 
and many more. 11. Homer often introduces curious 
legends of genealogy and race, in a manner which is 

1 II. ix. 186-189. 2 Od. viii. 579. 



I.] INTRODUCTION. 



palpably inopportune for the purposes of poetry, and 
which is, on the other hand, fully accounted for by 
the historic aim. These legends are not to be ex- 
plained by the garrulity of Nestor; for, even if the 
character of Nestor admitted of a garrulity wholly 
apart from good sense, still these legends are not con- 
fined to him. Nor are they shared with him only by 
Phcenix, who is likewise in years ; they are spoken by 
iEneas, Glaucos, and others, and this too even on the 
field of battle : and, by means of them, Homer has sup- 
plied us with a great mass of curious knowledge, highly 
interesting to his auditors, and eminently illustrative 
of the first beginnings of the Greek nation,. as yet in 
embryo. His intermixture of supernatural agency with 
human events must be judged on its own grounds ; but 
cannot by the laws of historical criticism be held of 
itself to overthrow his general credit. 

We must not however attempt to define with rigour 
the limits, within which the Poems are to be considered 
historical. The free intermixture of the supernatural 
need not indeed constitute a serious difficulty. For the 
theurgy of the Poems is, so to speak, self-subsistent. lrj 
represents in the main a parallel and concurrent action, 
rather than a mere ornament, or a simple portion of 
one and the same narration with the War; and it lies 
upon the human and visible tissue like a continuous 
pattern of rich embroidery. But several points of the 
story are presented to us in a dress apparently mythical ; 
for example, the distribution of the time into three- 
periods, each of ten years: and many of the names of 
persons appear to have been invented, especially in 
cases where they carry an etymological meaning calcu- 
lated directly to serve the purpose of the Poem. Again, 



10 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

if we suppose an historical existence for the persons indi- 
cated by the names, for example, of Achilles and Helen, 
it remains open to doubt, how large a proportion of the 
remarkable and characteristic features, with which they 
are invested, may be due to the imagination of the Poet. 
In the case of Achilles, whose qualities everywhere 
border on the superhuman, this question is especially 
relevant. Nor is the circumstance to be overlooked, 
that a goddess is assigned to him as a mother, and is 
stated to have sat commonly, or oftentimes, as queen 
in his father's palace \ 

It must also be fully admitted that, although the 
Troad may afford some physical indications favourable 
to the historic character of the Poems, yet the proof of 
that character chiefly, nay almost wholly, rests upon 
internal evidence 2 . But internal evidence, when 
carried to a certain point, is the very best we can 
desire in a case where we are obliged to travel back 
into the mist of ages, far beyond the limits of historical 
record. 

Of all the features of the Homeric Poems, perhaps 
the most remarkable are the delineations of personal 
character which they contain. They are not only in 
a high degree varied and refined • but they are also 
marvellously comprehensive and profound. The proof 
of their extraordinary excellence as works of art is to 
be found in this, that from Homer's time to our own, 
with the single exception of the works of Shakespeare, 
they have never been equalled. 

Homer is also admirable, when the specialties of 
his purpose are taken into view, in the arrangement 
of incidents : in keeping interest ever fresh : in his 

1 II. i. 326. 2 Mure, Literature of Greece, vol. i. 



I .] INTR OD UC TION. I 1 

precise and copious observation of nature : in his 
power of illustration, his use of epithets; in the free- 
dom, simplicity, and power of his language ; and in a 
versification perfect in its application to all the diver- 
sified forms of human action, speech, and feeling. 

It may probably have been the combined and in- 
tense effort of the Trojan War by which the Greeks 
first felt themselves, and first became, a nation. At any 
rate, from that epoch appears to date their community 
of interest and life. Homer, then, was hardly less won- 
derful in the fortune of his opportunity, than in the 
rarity of his gifts. In speaking of his theme, the two 
Poems may be taken as virtually one. He supplied to 
his country thenceforward, and for all periods, the bond 
of an intellectual communion, and a common treasure 
of ideas upon all the great subjects in which man is 
concerned. He was not only the glory and delight, 
but he was in a great degree the 7706777-7)9, the maker, 
of his nation. 

I have spoken of the darkness which, as far as direct 
testimony is concerned, envelopes the person of the 
Poet. The same is the case with the Homeric Poems, 
distinguished from every other work of the first rank 
in these among other particulars : there is not one, of 
which so little has been told us by contemporary or 
early testimony; while there is not one which tells us 
so much. Of their origin, their date, and their first 
reception, we know nothing, except so far as we can 
gather it from themselves. The Cyclic Poems, which 
aimed at completing the circle of events with which 
they deal, never attained to an equal or competing 
fame, and have long ago perished. Periods of dark- 
ness, the length of which we cannot determine, both 



1% JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

precede and follow the two great productions. At the 
dawn of trustworthy tradition, we find them holding a 
position of honour and authority among the Greeks, for 
which, with respect to works professedly secular, his- 
tory affords no parallel 1 . The Greeks had no sacred 
books, properly so called : and it is probable that the 
Poems of Homer filled in some particular respects the 
place of Sacred Books 2 for that people. 

By the Poems of Homer, I mean the Iliad and the 
Odyssey. I can find no adequate reason for assigning 
to him any other of the larger compositions of the early 
Greek Bards. Of the other works more or less reputed 
to be Homeric, not one can now be ascribed to him 
with confidence, or has been shown ever to have been so 
ascribed by the general and unhesitating opinion of the 
Greeks. The Hymns contain very few passages of 
such mark as even to allow the supposition that they 
could have proceeded from him. Nor do they carry, so 
to speak, his physiognomy. No writer of any period 
has borne stronger and more characteristic notes of 
style. We have seen that one beautiful passage is 
quoted from the Hymn to Apollo, by Thucydides. He 
describes that Hymn as a Hymn of Homer • and doubt- 
less he represents a tradition of his day. There are 
also one or two fragmentary verses ascribed to Homer : 
one passage, in particular, is given by Aristotle 3 , and 
said to have been taken from a poem termed The 
Margites. It may be observed that besides their 
general inferiority, the Hymns in general embody 

1 The case which comes nearest to this is perhaps that of the 
Divina Commedia of Dante. 

2 Milman, Life of Horace, p. i ; Grote, Hist, of Greece, vol. i. 

3 Eth. Nicom. vi. 7 






I.] INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

mythological traditions, evidently of a later stamp than 
those of the two great Epics. 

The Iliad and Odyssey give a picture of the age to 
which they refer, alike copious and animated, compre- 
hensive and minute. The Iliad represents that age in 
its vigour ; the Odyssey paints it in the beginning of 
its decline, when Greece had been unsettled and dis- 
organised by the prolonged absence of its chiefs at 
Troy. The Iliad gives us what it had been ; the 
Odyssey indicates what it was about to be. The de- 
lineations embrace jointly all the materials that human 
life and society could then in their simplicity supply : 
when writing was either unknown or unavailable, when 
civil rights had not begun to take the form of law, and 
when visible Art, in its higher sense, was an exotic 
not yet naturalised in Greece. In a manner chiefly 
incidental, there is supplied to us a mass of informa- 
tion on history and legend, religion, polity, justice, 
domestic life and habits, ethnical and social relations, 
the conditions of warfare, navigation, industry, and of 
the useful arts, exceeding in amount what has ever at 
any other period been brought for us into one focus 
by a single mind ; except possibly by the philosophical 
works of Aristotle, if we possessed them entire. 

It has been doubted 1 at various times whether 
either Poem, and especially whether the Iliad, was the 
work of a single author; and also whether the two 
were due to the same hand. The Chorizontes, so 
called because they separate the authorship of the Iliad 
from that of the Odyssey, found themselves mainly, 

1 See the account of the controversy from its earliest phase 
among the Alexandrian Critics, in Mure, Hist, of Greek Lit. 
vol. i, ch. ii. iii. iv. 



14 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

{a) On supposed discrepancies in the mythology of 
the two Poems respectively : 

(b) On differences of manners and institutions : 

(c) On differences in the language. 

Those who destroy the unity of the Poems, and espe- 
cially of the Iliad, altogether, contend, 

(a) That the art of writing did not exist at the time 
of their composition, and that poems of such length 
could not have been orally transmitted. This was the 
famous argument of Wolf. 

{b) That there are such discrepancies, anomalies, and 
defects of plan, in the Iliad, as to preclude the belief 
that it could be the work of a single mind. 

With respect to the argument of Wolf, it is now 
commonly admitted that no such art of writing existed, 
as could be available for the transmission of the 
Poems : but his second proposition, that they could not 
be transmitted orally, is also very commonly denied. 
Quintilian says, c Invenio apud Platonem obstare 
memorise usum literarum V Even in the period 
when the exercise of the memory had become subject 
to this disadvantage, Niceratos, according to Xeno- 
phon 2 , stated that he knew the Iliad and Odyssey by 
heart: and Athenseus 3 states, that Cassander, king of 
Macedon, could do nearly as much; he could repeat 
the chief part of the Poems. Even now, it would not 
be difficult to select youths, of strong memory, aided 
by poetic feeling, who, if they made it a profession, 
would be able to acquire by heart the whole of them : 
which however need not have been done by all those 
who recited them under a system apparently organised 
with a view to recitation in parts. 

1 xi. 2. 2 Sympos. iii. 5. 3 xiv. p. 620. 



I.] INTRODUCTION. 1$ 

As respects the other heads of argument against the 
unity of the Poems generally, it may be sufficient for 
the present to reply as follows : — 

(a) The plot of the Iliad (as will be shown) is ad- 
mirably constructed for its purpose. 

(b) Its internal discrepancies are both very few, and 
very insignificant. 

(c) Some of the cases of alleged discrepancy are only 
such when the canons of modern prose are applied pre- 
cipitately as the criteria of the oldest poetry. 

As regards the arguments of the Chorizontes or 
separators of the authorship of the two Epics, let it be 
observed : — 

(a) If the mythology of the Odyssey, in that region 
to which the voyage of Odysseus belongs, shall be shown 
to be Phoenician 1 , the whole argument from discrepancy 
in that mythology will thereupon disappear. 

(b) The differences in manners or institutions are 
not greater than may be explained by the action of 
a revolutionary crisis, like the crisis caused by the 
prolonged absence in Troas; and are really such 
as may be taken rather for an evidence of unity 
in authorship than the reverse. 

(c) Some differences of language between the two 
Poems is required by the different character of the 
subjects: and the actual differences seem not to be 
thought by scholars in general to betoken their be- 
longing to different ages. 

(d) A careful comparison of style between the 
Odyssey and the Iliad, and of a number of particulars 
of turn and manner, will be found to supply a con- 

1 See infra, Chap. V. on the Phoenicians; and Chap. VII. on 
Mythology, sect. Poseidon. 



1 6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

siderable amount of very specific evidence for the unity 
of authorship. No such resemblances could be shown 
to the works of any other author, or to the Pseudo- 
Homeric compositions. 

(e) Those characters of the Iliad, which are also 
found in the Odyssey, reappear in the later Poem 
with a perfect preservation of identity, confirmed, not 
impaired, by the altered shading which belongs to their 
altered positions. 

(/) The testimony of the Odyssey to facts, es- 
pecially those connected with the War, is in no 
case discordant with that of the Iliad. For if the 
manhood of Neoptolemos 1 creates a certain amount 
of difficulty, we should bear in mind that the 
adjustment of time with reference to the Poem, 
appears to be one of the points in which Homer 
has allowed himself a certain licence, with a view 
probably to poetical effect. 

(g) But the overwhelming proof of the unity 
of authorship, both for each Poem, and as between 
the two, is really supplied by the innumerable par- 
ticulars of manners, institutions, and ideas, which 
pervade both the Iliad and the Odyssey with a mar- 
vellous consistency ; and by the incommunicable 
stamp of an extraordinary genius which they carry 
throughout. If discrepancies exist, the difficulty they 
present is not only small, but infinitesimal, compared 
with the difficulty of that hypothesis which assumes 
that Greece produced in early times a multitude of 
Homers, and all of them with the very same stamp 
of mind. Whether in short we consider these works 
as poetry or as record, the marks of their unity are 

1 Od. xi. 506. 



I.] INTRODUCTION. 1 7 | 

innumerable and ineffaceable. A part of their force 
is sensible to the ordinary reader; but it will be felt 
constantly and immensely to increase in proportion as 
the reader becomes the student, by virtue of a patient, 
constant, and thorough examination of the text. 

Of the two Poems, it seems to me that, while both 
are wonderful, the Iliad is without doubt the greater. 
The plot of the Iliad, we shall find, is a marvellous 
combination of poetical skill with national spirit and 
practical prudence. The plot of the Odyssey, at first 
sight more organised and symmetrical, is in the first 
place of far easier construction, and in the second, 
is wound up in a manner which is feeble if not 
slovenly. The suspicions of the genuineness of the 
Twenty-fourth Book appear to me on the whole 
to be tolerably met by a general conformity of 
turn and handling, though with diminished force; 
and by many minute particulars of correspondence 
which, here as elsewhere, the text supplies. But they 
have perhaps been reasonably suggested by a percep- 
tible inferiority of workmanship in this and, with 
some exceptions, in several Books preceding it. The 
vigour of the Iliad, on the other hand, continues quite 
unabated to the end. Again, in the Odyssey there is 
not a mere decline of vigour : the plan of the ending 
may be called degenerate and incomplete. The ends of 
some of the threads are dropped. If ever a peace was 
patched it is that which is announced in the closing 
passage. The intervention of Mentor, even though his 
exterior conceals a deity, is not what the dignity of 
the Sovereign or the grandeur of Odysseus would require. 
And the unexplained as well as unfulfilled prophecy 1 of 

1 Od. xi. 127; xxiii. 275. 
C 



l8 yWENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the war, suggests that Homer had poetical intentions to 
which it was not permitted him to give effect. 

Generally speaking, the Odyssey displays the same 
powers as the Iliad, but in less energetic manifestation. 
A faculty of debate, never surpassed if ever equalled in 
human history, is found in both ; but though the flight 
of Odysseus in the Seventh Odyssey is, like that of 
the contention in the First Iliad, a lofty one, it cannot 
be compared with the wonderful speech of Achilles in 
the tent-scene of the Ninth. Again ; no man but 
Homer could have reproduced in the Odyssey to the 
life the characters of the Iliad, or could have added the 
specific shading of their altered circumstances. But 
though Homer in each is stronger than any other of 
the Ancients, yet Homer of the Iliad is Homer at the 
height and maximum of his power in this transcendent 
quality ; while in the Odyssey the great luminary 
seems to have just begun his descending course. 

Next comes the question how far we may reckon on 
having substantially the same text as that of our 
author ; not as to any minor detail, nor even so as to 
exclude occasional interpolations, but as to the style, 
diction, and language generally. 

Mr. Paley 1 says (not that the Greek of the Iliad is 
greatly different from that of the Odyssey, but) that we 
find in the Poems two distinct and separate phases of 
the Greek tongue: first, the language of the earliest 
Trojan Epics, and secondly, the ordinary Ionic of the 
time of Herodotus, with a mixture of Attic idioms. 
The question is one evidently requiring minute ex- 
amination j but it is beyond my competency to decide. 
I would observe, however, 

1 .Athenaum, Aug. 10, 1867. 



I.] INTRODUCTION. 1 9 

(a) That in an author who composed at a period of 
crisis, when all the elements of the Hellenic nation, that 
was to be, were settling down, we should look for, or 
at least should not be startled by, some mixture of 
older and younger forms. 

(b) That considerable changes of the minor order 
might be made in the text of the Poems without 
seriously affecting the substance, if there was a great 
and constant anxiety to abide by the true sense of 
Homer. 

(c) That if we find the internal evidence as to 
manners, institutions, and facts, singularly self-con- 
sistent, this goes far to show that alterations of the 
text have been generally confined within merely verbal 
and narrow limits. 

(d) The antiquity of the present text is not over- 
thrown by the fact that the later poets in many 
instances have followed other forms of legend in regard 
to the Troica: for they would necessarily consult the 
state of popular feeling from time to time; and 
tradition, which, as to religion, altered so greatly after 
the time of Homer, would, as to facts and persons, 
it is evident, vary materially according to the sym- 
pathies of blood and otherwise at different periods of 
Greek history. The displacement of the Achaians, 
and the rise of the Dorians and Ionians, must have 
occasioned great changes in this respect. It is also 
surprising, if such difference in the language really 
exists as is alleged by Mr. Paley, that it was not 
perceived by the Greeks of the classic period, who must 
surely be allowed to have known their own tongue. 

There are passages of ancient writers, which tend 
to the disintegration of Homer. But they are late, 

c 2 



20 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

and of small authority. Josephus 1 says it was reported, 
or thought, that from want of the aid afforded by the 
art of writing there were many discrepancies in the 
Poems. This was merely a current opinion, not of 
himself but of others, on the state of the text; an 
opinion which we can for ourselves see to have been 
erroneous. The Scholiast on Pindar 2 reports, and only 
reports, that Kunaithos and his school had made large 
interpolations. The Latin authors, such as Cicero or 
Paterculus, must be considered as giving their opinions, 
which cannot from the circumstances be of great 
critical weight, rather than as witnesses in the case. 

The external evidence to a contrary effect, though 
fragmentary, is more considerable, and for the most 
part of much earlier date. Heraclides Ponticus 3 , a 
pupil of Plato, declares that Lycurgus obtained the Ho- 
meric Poems from the descendants of Kreophulos, and 
was the first to bring them into Peloponnesos. iElian 4 
makes the slight but material addition, that he brought 
this poetry in a mass (aOpoav). Plato states in the Re- 
public 5 that Kreophulos was a companion of Homer; 
Strabo 6 , that he was a Samian ; Diogenes Laertius 7 , 
that Hermodamas, the master of Pythagoras, was his 
descendant. Plutarch 8 states that some portions of 
Homer were known in Greece before Lycurgus brought 
the whole from Crete. 

Herodotus 9 states that Cleisthenes, the tyrant of 
Sicyon, when he had been at war with Argos, put 

1 Contr. Ap. ii. 2. 2 Nem. ii. 1. 

3 Fragm. nep\ 7ro\iTeia>v. * Var. Hist. xiii. 14. 

5 Rep. x. p. 600 B. 6 xiv. p. 946. 

7 viii. 2. 8 Lye. p. 41. 
9 v. 67. 



I.] INTRODUCTION. 21 

a stop to the competitions of the rhapsodists in 
Sicyon, because the Homeric songs turned chiefly upon 
the Argeians and Argos (otl 'ApyetoL re /cat v Apyos ra 
7io\\a irdvra vyt,viaTai). Also, that he sought to banish 
from Sicyon the memory of Adrestos, as being an 
Argive hero. Now the Iliad describes Greece not 
seldom under the title of Argos, and the Greeks 
frequently as Argeians ; and it represents Adrestos 
as the first king of Sicyon, while at the same time 
it represents him as the father-in-law, or grandfather- 
in-law, of Diomed the Argive chieftain. 
From this passage it appears — 

(a) That there were at Sicyon, six centuries before 
Christ, State - recitations of the Homeric Poems, 
attended with prizes. 

(b) That they are not named as peculiar to Sicyon, 
but rather as a customary institution, set aside in 
that place at a certain epoch on special grounds. 

(c) That the recitations depended chiefly on the 
Homeric Poems; for they ceased when these were 
prohibited. 

Dieuchidas of Megara, an author placed by Heyne 
after the time of Alexander the Great, is quoted by 
Diogenes 1 as stating that Solon provided by law for 
the recitation of the Homeric poems e£ {nTofioXrjs, one 
reciter taking up another ; and therefore that Solon did 
more than Peisistratos to throw light upon the Poet. 
And Lycurgus the orator, who was contemporary with 
Demosthenes 2 , tells the Athenian people that their 
forefathers thought of him so highly as to provide by 
law for the recitation of his songs, and his alone, 
quinquennially at the Panathenaica ; and such, he adds, 

1 Diog. Laert. i. 57. 2 In Leocritum, 104-8. 



2Z JUVENTU3 MUNDI. [CHA?. 

was then the valour of their ancestors, that the Spartans 
took Tyrtaeus 1 from among them to be their general. 
Hence it appears that — 

(a) According to Lycurgus, Homer was recited at 
Athens in the time of Tyrtaeus, nearly seven cen- 
turies before Christ. 

(b) Just when Athens begins to rise, Solon appoints 
by public law competitive recitations of Homer, to be 
taken in turn by the reciters. 

(c) And of Homer alone. 

(d) It appears negatively that probably there were 
recitations at Athens before Solon, but without regular 
turns. 

(e) If public authority thus established the recita- 
tion of the Poems, we may rest assured that care was 
taken, as far as possible, to preserve their text from 
corruption. 

(f) The vanity or carelessness of a particular rhapso- 
dist would tend to corrupt them ; but the matches were 
free and competitive, and each reciter would be watched 
and checked by the vigilant j ?alousy of his rivals. This 
element of competition would in all likelihood have 
a highly conservative effect, before the art of writing 
had come into use. And it is plain, from 11. ii. 594-600, 
that the practice prevailed from before the time of 
Homer himself; as he tells us that Thamuris had 
challenged the Muses to compete with him, and was 
punished accordingly for his audacity. Hesiod wit- 
nesses to the matches, and says that in Aulis he himself 
won a tripod 2 . Thucydides also finds proof of them in 
the Hymn to Apollo 3 . 

1 Smith's Diet., art. Tyrtaeus. 2 Opp. 654-657. 

3 Hymn Apoll. 146-150, 166-173. 



1.] INTRODUCTION. \ 1$ 

(g) In a word, while there were at work what may 
be called centrifugal forces, tending to impair and 
vitiate the text of the Poems, there were also 
centripetal forces tending to restore it ; in the rivalry 
of States as well as of Bards, in the intense love of 
the song of Homer felt by every Greek, and in the 
great value set by the whole people upon it as a record. 

When we come down to the historic period, we 
find in it full evidence of the standing anxiety both of 
States and persons to preserve the text of Homer. 
It appears probable that a common text was more or 
less recognised, while many even of the Greek Colonies 
had their public or State Recensions. Individuals of 
eminence, or of literary taste, had their editions also. 
The Venetian Scholiast constantly refers to these two 
descriptions of copies, and while the references prove 
that there were in this, as in every ancient document, 
many variations of text, they also show that such 
variations were confined within narrow limits, and 
did not affect the body of the work. The State 
editions were called at 7roA.trtKat, at e*c t&v Tiokeaiv,. 
at airb iro\€(av: those prepared for individuals at /car 
avhpa : and a third class, got up apparently for public 
sale, and of very variable quality, were at koivoi, at 
brjfAOTiKca, at brjfxaheLS. 

Among the public or State Recensions, we hear of 
those of Argos, Crete, Sinope, Marseilles, Chios, 
Cyprus ; of the Aiolis or Aiolike, a name which may 
perhaps indicate the recognised text of what is called 
Homer's iEolian Greek; the Recension of the IVJou- 
seion, or depository near the School at Alexandria; 
and the Kuklike, which is supposed to mean an edition 
wherein Homer appeared with other poems of the Cycle. 



24 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

It seems very probable, that the work of Peisistratos 
was in substance a critical recension of the text effected 
by a comparison of different versions, and a complete 
publication by authority of the several portions of the 
Poems in the order in which we now have them ; in 
fact that it was an early and notable example of the 
reactive tendency to preserve the text by recurrence 
to a standard, and to check its variations, which I have 
mentioned as the natural counterpoise to disintegrating 
agencies. 

We have no clear account of the proceedings of 
Peisistratos ; but we know that when, at a later period, 
the Alexandrian School of Zenodotos, Aristophanes, 
and Aristarchos brought the best critical power of 
the time to bear upon the Poems, they found com- 
paratively little to question. Nor have the suspicions 
they entertained of particular passages since received 
anything approaching to an unanimous approval. 

As to more general reconstructions, it is allowed that 
the Odyssey does not admit of them; and such as 
have been proposed with regard to the Iliad have 
manifestly failed to obtain any sensible, much more 
any permanent, amount of assent. 

But the strongest argument for the soundness of 
the text, as well as that for the unity of the Poems, 
hangs upon internal evidence. I do not hesitate to 
say that no work known to me presents, in any degree 
equal or approaching to these Poems, the proof, in 
kind among the strongest of all, which arises out of 
natural unstudied self-consistency in detail. The 
particulars in which the text confirms at one point 
what it conveys at another may be counted by many 
thousands: those where it appears to be inconsistent 



I.] INTRODUCTION. 2$ 

are but a few units to be reckoned by the primitive 
process of Proteus upon the fingers. Errors undoubtedly 
there must be. Still, if they were very serious, it is 
impossible but that a far greater number of them must 
have been tracked out, and their detection established 
to the general satisfaction of cultivated men. On one 
portion only of the Forty-eight Books, namely the 
close of the Odyssey, has there been thrown what 
may be termed grave or recognised doubt; and even 
here doubt is all that can be reasonably sustained. 
Indeed over and above correspondence of tangible 
particulars there is what I must call an unity of at- 
mosphere in the Poems, such as I believe has never 
been achieved by forgery or imitation. 

In this chapter I have not relied upon the tradition 
according to which Lycurgus, the great Spartan law- 
giver, brought the Poems into use in Lacedsemon, 
because it is one belonging to the Roman rather 
than the Greek period. On the other hand I cannot 
attach great weight to the statement in the Hippar- 
chos 1 , which assigns to that Sovereign the original 
introduction of the Poems into Attica. It appears 
simply incredible that the Poems should have been 
unknown in Attica, when we learn from Herodotus 
that they had long before been recited in Sicyon. 

On the whole, then, we are not in every case dog- 
matically to assert that each line of the Poems as they 
stand is the work of Homer ; but while fairly weighing 
the evidence in the comparatively few cases where doubt 
sustained by argument has been raised, we may, as a 
general rule, proceed to handle the text with a 
reasonable confidence, that the ground is firm under 

1 Sect. iv. 



26 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

our feet* a confidence, which experience in the work 
will, I think, be found progressively to confirm. 

Thus far we have seen reason to suppose that the 
Iliad and the Odyssey are the work of a Poet who lived 
at a date that we are unable to define otherwise than by 
its nearness to the Trojan War; an event which, if we 
attempt to measure its distance from the historic era 
by manners and institutions, we must hold to be of 
a high antiquity. 

At times it has been questioned, whether Homer or 
Hesiod was the older poet. We know of Hesiod that 
while the reputed authors of the Cyclic Poems belong 
to the historic era \ he is pre-historic ; and we must 
seek, therefore, in his works, as in those of Homer, 
for the means of estimating his probable c whereabout ' 
in the deep mist of ages. He gives us no sign that the. 
instrument of writing had become available at his 
epoch for the preservation of poetry ; and if his com- 
positions, as being much shorter, taxed the memory 
more lightly, on the other hand we have no reason 
to believe that they were watched with the same 
jealous care to preserve, or to recover, the genuine 
text. But if the episode of the Five Ages be genuine, 
they are decisive of the question. For the composer of 
it had been witness to an iron age; and iron, as 
compared with copper, had in his time come to be 
the inferior, that is to say the cheaper, metal. The 
use of it therefore must have grown common ; as, from 
remains still extant, it had evidently come to be 
common in Assyria at a period supposed to be about 
the eighth century before Christ. Homer lived at a 
period, as defined by economic laws, much earlier ; at 

1 Mure, Lit. of Greece 3 ii. 282. 



I.] INTRODUCTION. 2J 

a time when the use of iron was but just commencing, 
when the commodity was rare, and when its value was 
very great. This argument appears to me so conclusive 
as to the comparative dates, that I forbear to dwell 
on other particulars, or upon the considerable difference 
in the manners of the Hesiodic, as compared with the 
Homeric, Poems. 

We have also seen that in the state of primitive 
society it was essential to the business of the Epic 
Bard to commemorate, in poetic forms, actual events ; 
and that the works of Homer prove how he kept this 
property of his art constantly in mind. 

Viewing then his position in human history and his 
profession, we find that he is an original and a solitary, 
as he is also a most copious, witness to the condition 
of mankind, and especially of the Greeks, at a period 
to which we have no other direct literary access. 
Traditions there are in abundance, reported by Apol- 
lodorus in mass, or scattered here and there through the 
works of earlier writers; and these traditions may, in 
any given case, contain matter relating to the age of 
Homer, or to what preceded him, and may even in some 
cases be true, or nearer the truth than his. But they 
carry as a general rule no attestation ; and their con- 
fused and promiscuous nature marks them as a miscel- 
lany gradually accumulated in many ages and from many 
lands. I submit then that we ought to make the 
evidence of Homer in relation to his age and to what 
had gone before, a separate study, and to assign to 
it a primary authority. The testimony of later writers 
should be handled in subordination to it, and in general 
even tried by it as by a touchstone, on all the subjects 
which it embraces. It will be seen, as we proceed 



28 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 



to deal with the contents of the Poems, that this is 
a proposition fruitful of important results as regards the 
religion, the polity, and the manners of early Greece. 

In asking for the testimony of Homer a primary 
authority, I refer only to those cases where it stands 
in competition with other, and in truth inferior, 
literary evidence. The evidence of fact, whether in 
geography and topography, in language, or in archae- 
ology, stands upon its own ground, and Homer, like 
every other author, must yield, if a conflict arise, to 
its more cogent authority. 

I will give a single example of the discrepancy 
between the Homeric, and the later, representations 
of the early Greek ethnology. According to a tradition 
founded in part upon Apollodoros \ in part upon a 
fragment ascribed by Tzetzes to Hesiod 2 , Deucalion 
was the son of Prometheus, and a certain Hellen was 
the son of Deucalion. Hellen had three sons, Aiolos, 
Doros, and Xouthos ; and Xouthos again had two sons, 
Ion and Achaios. 

It is impossible not to be struck with the convenient 
adaptation, speaking generally, of this tradition to the 
reputed descent and succession of the various Greek 
races, so as to give to each its share of fame and its 
order of seniority. All Greeks were Hellenes, so 
Hellen is made the father of them all. The oldest 
among these names in the Greek tradition is Aiolos ; so 
an Aiolos is made the eldest son of Hellen. The great 
dominant race of the first historic ages of Greece was 
the Dorian; accordingly, Doros is the second son of 
Hellen. The Ionians, represented by Attica, came later 
to their repute and power ; so they, and the Achaians 

1 Lib. vil. 2. 3. 2 Fragm. xxviii. ap. Tzetz. ad Lye. 284. 



I.] INTRODUCTION. 29 

to whom they gave a refuge after the Dorian conquest, 
appear as the children of the third and youngest son. 
This tradition may be properly viewed as a pretty piece 
of joinery. But Mure * has with justice observed that 
the name Hellen bears witness against itself, being ap- 
parently derived from the territorial name Hellas, and 
that in its turn from the Helloi. When we bring this 
tradition, thus discredited by internal evidence, to the 
bar of Homer, we find him in discord with it on every 
point. Of Hellen as a person he knows nothing : the 
name would to all appearance have meant in his ear 
most properly an inhabitant of Southern Thessaly. 
Aiolos, if named by him at all, is named as a foreigner- 
while only particular families, not a tribe descended 
from him, are indicated as having borne or bearing rule 
in parts of Greece. Doros is wholly unknown to him; 
and the Dorians are a portion, apparently an obscure 
portion at the time, of the inhabitants of Crete. Of 
Xouthos we have no trace whatever , in fact this whole 
family is, as such, utterly non-existent. There is no 
Ion ; and the Iaones who appear as settled in the Attica 
of Homer, are without any tribal eponymist. Again, 
there is no trace of an Achaios ; but the name Achaioi 
is the dominant name of the period, and the crown 
of its celebrity. 

Such, exhibited by an example, is the contrariety 
between Homeric and post-Homeric tradition. We 
shall see in due time what materials the text of Homer 
can contribute towards the construction of the eth- 
nology of Greece in the heroic age. 

In the following pages I endeavour to give to the 
testimony of Homer what I have described as its due 

1 Lit. of Greece, vol. i. p. 39 n. 



30 JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



place. They are based upon a wide collection of 
particulars from the text. And, as far as possible, I 
have supplied the reader with means of judging where 
it is Homer that speaks, and where it is an illustrative 
tradition, or an indication drawn from some other than 
a literary source ; as also of distinguishing in all cases 
between evidence, and the inference or conjecture 
which I may have presumed to found upon it. 

Upon the whole, I trust enough has been said to 
show that in the text of the Poet we may find solid 
materials to work upon for the handling of the Homeric 
question. With this encouragement, let us commence 
our inquiries. 






CHAPTER II. 



The Three Great Appellatives. 

The name of Greeks, as the modern equivalent of 
the several appellatives by which Homer describes the 
army engaged in the siege of Troy, is too firmly 
established to be changed. But it is not a correct 
name. The Greek equivalent of the word is TpaiKoL 
The name Tpaia 1 is found in the Iliad, but it is only 
a local name of a settlement of Boiotoi or Boeotians. 
The name applied to themselves by the Greek people 
throughout the historic times, as at the present day, 
was not Graikoi, but Hellenes. And even this name, 
as Thucydides 2 observes, had not come into vogue in 
the time of Homer. It was indeed, as we shall find, 
creeping, so to speak, into use : but the standing ap- 
pellations of the army in the Iliad are these three, 
Danaoi, Argeioi, and Achaioi ; and it is sufficiently 
plain that the most proper national name for the 
Greeks of the period was that of \\ya io h Achaians. 
We call them Greeks conventionally: but with no 
more accuracy than we should render the Galli of 

1 II. ii. 498.. 2 i. 3. 



32 JUVENTUS MUNBI. [CHAP. 

Caesar by the word c French/ We should bear in mind, 
then, that in strictness the Greeks of the Troica were 
Achaians. 

We find in Homer traces, as of a religion, so of a 
race, or group of races, who inhabited the Greek 
peninsula before the Achaians, or any other tribe of 
the blood afterwards classed as Hellenic. These in- 
habitants passed in different places under a variety of 
designations ; of which the most comprehensive and 
wide-spread 1 appears to have been Pelasgoi. They 
seem to have formed the base of the Greek army, and 
of the people subject to the sway of Achaian and other 
great families. 

There is no trace in the poems of their having used 
a language different from that of their superiors in 
station, although the tradition of a difference in blood 
subsisted down to the historic time, and although the 
Pelasgian language, where the people using it had not 
been blended with the Hellenes, had then come to be 
accounted as a distinct, if not a foreign, tongue. 

The relation between this older race and the Hel- 
lenic tribes leads to the conclusion that both were alike 
derived from the Aryan stem. And there is no reason 
to believe that there were any earlier occupants of 
the Greek, or of the Italian Peninsula 2 , than the group 
of tribes that was called Pelasgian. Neither of these 
countries presents us with remains belonging to what 
is called the stone period of the human race, when im- 
plements and utensils were made of that material, and 
the use of metals was unknown. The first emigrants 
from the East may probably have worked their way by 

1 Thirlwall, Hist, of Greece, vol. i. chap. ii. 

2 Mommsen, Hist, of Rome, chap. i. 



II. j THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 33 

land to and along the comparatively level and easy 
countries of Central Europe, and seem not to have 
penetrated through the masses of mountain, which 
inclose on their northern sides both Greece and Italy. 
The boast of autochthonism, or birth from the soil, so 
rife in the historic ages of Greece, was therefore not 
irrational, if we consider it to betoken only the claim 
to first occupancy. And it seems to have been prin- 
cipally in vogue among the people of Attica and 
Arcadia, the former of which had long been impressed 
with a markedly Pelasgian character, while the latter 
retained that character even through the historic 
period. The particulars which have been embraced 
in this slight survey are partly suggested by, and are in 
all cases accordant with, the Homeric testimony. 

The Greeks of the Iliad are ordinarily called by 
Homer 

1. Danaoi. 

2. Argeioi. 

3. Achaioi. 
They are also called 

1. Panhellenes, II. ii. 530. 

2. Panachaioi, II. ii. 404; vii. 73, 159, 327; 

ix. 301 ; x. 1 ; xix. 193 • xxiii. 236. Od. i. 
239; xiv.369; xxiv.32. 

With respect to the three first, which may be called 
the Great Appellatives of Homer, it is manifest that 
the Poet frequently uses them as interchangeable and 
synonymous. Yet, upon examination, important dis- 
tinctions will be found to exist between them. 

The various legends interspersed through the Poems, 
carry back the Homeric tradition to a period several 
generations earlier than the War of Troy : which War 



34 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

together with the attendant group of circumstances, I 
shall commonly call trie Troica. But we shall find that 
Homer does not also carry backwards the use of these 
appellatives indifferently through the pre-Troic period : 
and thus we shall obtain pretty clear evidence of a 
chronological succession among them. 

This rule applies likewise to other Homeric names. 
For example; when reference is made, in the narra- 
tive of the Iliad, to the soldiers belonging to the 
country afterwards called Bceotia, he describes them as 
Boiotoi. But where Agamemnon and Athene intro- 
duce the legend 1 of Tudeus, which touches the people 
of the same district at a prior epoch, they are called 
not Boiotoi but Kadmeioi and Kadmeiones. More- 
over, in this same legend appear the people of Argos, 
and the people of Mycense. They are both called 
Achaioi, a name never given to the Kadmeioi. 

In the legend of the birth of Eurustheus 2 , the scene 
is laid in "Apyos y kyaiiK6v. This name we shall find 
still attached perhaps to the Peloponnesos, and cer- 
tainly to the Eastern Peloponnesos, in the time of 
Homer. Its inhabitants, who are described as we 
have seen, in the time of Tudeus, that is to say one 
generation before the War, as Achaioi, are called, in 
the time of Eurustheus, and therefore before the period 
of the Pelopids, not Achaioi but Argeioi 3 . It seems 
impossible to treat these very marked usages as acci- 
dental. 

About the same period Proitos, whom the post- 
Homeric tradition represents as a brother of Euru- 
stheus, expelled Bellerophon from Ephure 4 . The text, 

1 II. iv. 385, 391 ; v. 800-7. 2 II. xix. 95 seqq. 

3 II. xix. 122, 124. 4 II. vi. 158. 






II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. ^ 

true to itself, describes the people over whom Proitos 
ruled, not as Danaoi or Achaioi, but as Argeioi. In 
the same manner the Poet here describes as Ephure 
what in the Catalogue he calls Corinth 1 . 

Homer then appears to point to Argeioi as the more 
ancient, and Achaioi as the more recent, name. But, 
moreover, he uses the two designations with marked 
respect to place as well as time. 

In the Eleventh Iliad 2 , Nestor details to Patroclos 
the legend of the war between the Pulians, and the 
Epeians who inhabited Elis. He calls the Pulians dis 
tinctively Achaians, where he is speaking of them as 
the conquering party. He seems to withhold that 
name from the conquered : and he gives it to the 
Pulians at a period which must have been within 
the life and reign of Eurustheus, that is to say, the 
period when the name of Argeians was attached to 
those who inhabited the ruling quarter of Greece, or 
the Eastern Peloponnesos. 

But the word Argeioi, used freely by Homer as a 
national designation, has also a marked local sense in 
the poems. It is a standing epithet, in the singular, 
of Helen, and this too in the mouth of Greeks, and of 
deities, whose use of it gives it a force quite different 
from that which it might have had among the Trojans. 
The purely national name would in such a case have 
been void of distinctive meaning ; but now we natu- 
rally interpret the epithet as referring to the part of 
Greece with which Helen was especially connected. 
According to the post-Homeric tradition, confirmed by 
the Iliad, which makes Lacedsemon the country of 
Castor and Poludeukes 3 , Tundareos, her father, was 
1 II. ii. 570. 2 II. xi. 670-761. 3 II. iii. 244. 

D % 



$6 JU VENT US MUNDI. 



CHAP. 



king of Sparta. Till the Pelopid House acquired it, 
and thus the Achaian sway began, this would be an 
Argeian kingdom ; and thus Helen, though the wife 
of Menelaos, represents by her descent an Argeian 
title to it, so that the epithet thus acquires a full 
significance. 

Thus far I have cited some examples to illustrate 
the practice of Homer. Let us now consider the 
leading particulars connected with the use of the 
three Great Appellatives. 

The name Danaoi is used in the Iliad 147 times: 
in the Odyssey thirteen. Once it is combined with 
Argeioi, in Od. viii.578, and appears to serve as an epi- 
thet. It is never used in the feminine. It is never 
used in the singular- and never locally. It seems 
never to signify the people inhabiting the Greek pen- 
insula and islands, nor their ancestors in prior his- 
tory : but invariably and only the Greeks of the army. 
It has therefore all the appearance of being an heroic 
and poetical rather than an historical appellation, and 
thus it is well adapted to describe men engaged in a 
military expedition surrounded with the most romantic 
associations. 

Accordingly, the epithets applied to Aavaot are ex- 
clusively of a military character. They are 

1. ?/pcoe?, II. ii. no, 256; xv. 733 (heroes). 

2. 6€pdirovT€s"Apr]os, II. vii. 382 ; xix. 78 (comrades 

of Ares). 

3. 0tA.o7:roAe/xot, II. xx. 351 (war-loving). 

4. alxixr)Tai, II. xii.419 (spearmen). 

5. aairio-Tai, II. xiii. 680 (shielded, heavy-armed). 

6. icpfiifioi., II. xi. 290 (stalwart). 

7. rax^wAot, II. viii. 161 (of swift steeds). 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 37 

It being then plain that Danaoi was not the proper 
contemporary name of the Greeks, it is also plain that 
it could not have been applied to the Greeks as an 
army before Troy, unless it had had some root lying 
deep in the history or legends of Greece. 

National or tribal names in Homer usually come 

1. From an eponymist or founder of a state, directly 
as Dardanoi or Troes, or Kadmeioi ; or indirectly, 
when they proceed from the name of a country, which 
name has been acquired from an eponymist. Such is 
Ithakesioi from Ithake, Ithake itself being derived 
from Ithakos, who is mentioned in Od. xvii. 207. 

2. In like manner a name may come mediately 
from a race instead of an individual. Thus it seems 
that Hellas is derived from Helloi, and is in its 
turn the source of the great national name Hell en. 

3. From the physical character of the country inha- 
bited, asThrekes (Thracians), from 0pj}£, describing a 
rough highland country 1 : or Aigialeis, from Alyiakos^ 
the district of coast to the south of the Gulf of 
Corinth. 

4. In the single case of the Athenians, we find the 
name of a population derived from that of a deity. 

Besides the Homeric names which can be traced to 
one or other of these sources, there are names of which 
the connection with any of them is not established, or 
even where it is improbable. 

The text of Homer affords very slender aid for 
tracing the name Danaoi up to its source. But we must 
combine the fact of its application, limited as it is, to 
the nation, with the negative evidence afforded by this 
fact, that Homer nowhere uses the name as a domestic 
1 Cf. Od. ix. 27. 



38 JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



CHAP. 



name, either for his own, or for the immediately pre- 
ceding generations. This seems to throw back the 
origin of the name to a period comparatively re- 
mote. 

And when we reach such a period, we find at least 
a clue. In II. xiv. 319 we hear of the amour of Zeus 
with a beautiful Danae, of the royal house of Acrisios, 
from which union sprang Perseus and his line. The 
presumption then arises, that this Danae, being the 
daughter and mother of princes, was of the lineage of a 
Danaos, that this Danaos was himself a real or reputed 
prince of celebrity, and that he gave his name to the 
people with whom, and among whom, he effected a 
settlement in Greece. 

This may be the proper place to observe that, on the 
subject of the foreign origin of Greek races or houses, 
Homer is what is termed an unwilling witness. In- 
tensely national in feeling, he represents the first form 
of that peculiar sentiment which, in the historic period, 
divided mankind into Greeks and Barbarians ; much 
as the Hebrew race, upon grounds of a more definite 
character, made their division of the world into Jew 
and Gentile. There can be little doubt that Homer 
could, if he would, have told us much respecting immi- 
grations and settlements in Greece, which now remains 
the subject of comparatively dark conjecture. But it 
may be broadly laid down that he systematically eschews 
tracing either a family or a tribe to an origin abroad. 
It seems to be his intention that we should assume all 
Greek families and races, and further all Greek man- 
ners and institutions, to have sprung out of the soil. 
The sources of silver and copper and some other com- 
modities, and moreover of works of art, he is willing, or 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 39 

even careful, to point out. But not so as to man and 
his highest operations. Though he tells us sometimes 
of foreign persons and events, he never, I think, con- 
sciously supplies, but seems habitually to keep back, the 
link between them and his own beloved Greek nation. 

All this seems to be conformable to the course of 
natural feeling. Arrivals from abroad, in the earliest 
periods of the life of a nation, usually indicate either 
the conquest, or at least the superiority, in one form or 
another, of foreigners over natives, of what is strange 
to the soil over what is associated with it. In this 
there is some violation of that feeling of simple rever- 
ence for the past, which is so conspicuous among the 
Greeks of Homer, and which is jarred by the memory 
of all disturbances of its even tenour. It can hardly be 
that, in any country, such narratives should be popular 
at or near the time of the events. Even the process by 
which Hellenes mastered Pelasgians, or by which Pelo- 
pids put themselves in the place of Perseids, is nowhere 
disclosed to us by Homer : whose purpose it was to unite 
more closely the elements of the nation, and not to 
record that they had once been separate. 

When Homer tells us of descendants of a Tantalos, 
or an Aiolos, and of a people called Kadmeiones, but 
gives us no clue to the extraction, or to the habitation, 
of any of these personages themselves, we may conclude, 
without much risk of error, that none of them were 
native Greeks, and that their names mark the point of 
transition from a foreign to a Greek domicile for their 
respective families. He never even names the connec- 
tion of Kadmeiones with Kadmos, or of Pelopidai with 
Pelops : both these great personages are only named by 
him incidentally, in remote portions of the Poems ; and 



40 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

as to Aiolos, the ancestor of the Aiolids, it has not yet 
been generally recognized that the Poet names him at all. 

Without, then, calling in the aid of extraneous tra- 
ditions, it appears highly probable that the Danaoi bore 
the same relation to a Danaos, as the Kadmeioi ob- 
viously bear to a real or imaginary Kadmos. 

It is also probable, that Danae stands in the genera- 
tion next to Danaos. For Danae herself stands, as we 
shall see, in the sixth generation before the Troica; 
and the knowledge and traditions of Homer nowhere go 
back beyond the seventh generation. But as Danae is 
the daughter of Acrisios, not of Danaos, it is probable 
that Acrisios was a younger brother of Danaos ; and 
that the genealogy stands as follows : 

I. Danaos = Acrisios. 

2. Danae. 

3. Perseus. 

4. Sthenelos. 

5. Eurustheus. Contemporary with Heracles and Pelops. 

6. Atreus = Thuestes. 

7. Agamemnon = Aigisthos. 

It will here be perceived that the text of Homer is 
altogether at variance with those later legends, which 
throw back the first Greek dynasties into a very remote 
comparative antiquity. There is, I apprehend, an in- 
trinsic improbability in such legends as affect to trace 
prolonged lines of sovereigns through ages of darkness 
and barbarism, not possessed of the ordinary means of 
record • but there is also this strong presumption in 
favour of the Homeric text, that his genealogies, ga- 
thered indiscriminately as they are from different parts 
of the Poems, are in singular, if not absolutely un- 
varying, accordance with each other. 

According to the post-Homeric tradition, Danaos 






■II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 41 

was an Egyptian, and was brother of Aiguptos. He 
migrated into Greece, and became king of Argos. 
Proitos was his great-grandson; and as, according to 
the legend of the Sixth Iliad 1 , Proitos stands at two or 
two and a-half generations before the war, there is here 
an apparent agreement with Homer; but as Acrisios 
also is made the brother of Proitos, a much greater 
antiquity is in effect claimed for the immigration of 
Danaos. So far, however, as respects his personality, 
the seat of his kingdom, and his being of foreign origin, 
the later tradition sustains the presumptions arising 
from the text of Homer. 

The early disappearance of the name from the roll of 
tradition would be easily accounted for by that change 
of the dynasty in the male line which takes place at 
the time of Danae. 

From what country Danaos came, we shall hereafter 
have occasion to consider. For the present we may 
take him to have been one of the personages who arrived 
in Greece as a stranger, and who there founded such a 
dynasty, among the primitive or Pelasgian population, 
as became naturalised. This foundation seems to have 
taken place at the very commencement of what we 
may call the traditionary, as opposed to the merely my- 
thical, period, about two hundred years before the Trojan 
War. 

Even this is considerably older than the date of 
any family which we can connect with the Achaian 
name, or with the Hellenic stock. It seems, however, 
quite possible that Perseus and his race may on the 
father's side have descended from an Hellenic ancestry, 
and that the fable of Zeus and Danae may be no more 
1 II. vi. 158. 



42 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

than a veil employed to cover the transition, and to 
dignify the origin of the incoming family. 

Hesiod 1 terms Perseus both Danai'des, and son of 
Danae, and states that Danaos relieved Argos from 
drought. iEschylus in the Supplices 2 represents the 
whole Greek Peninsula as having been originally sub- 
ject to one and the same sway under Pelasgos. Euri- 
pides 3 says that Danaos changed the name of the 
Peloponnesians from Pelasgiotai to Danaoi. These re- 
ports are in no way at variance with the Homeric text. 
Upon the whole, then, the probable conclusions are : 
i. That the Danaan name was dynastic. 

2. That the dynasty was pre-Hellenic. 

3. That it stands next in chronological succession to 
the Pelasgic time • and 

4. That it makes its appearance at about two cen- 
turies, more or less, before the War of Troy. 

We have next to deal with the name Argeioi. And 
first as to the facts connected with its use in the 
Poems. 

It is found 177 times in the Iliad, and seventeen 
times in the Odyssey. I speak of the plural form. The 
singular is also used eleven times in the Iliad, and 
seventeen times in the Odyssey. 

Of the seventeen passages in the Odyssey, not one 
refers to the Greeks as a nation, or as contemporary 
with the action of the Poem. In two of them, Od. 
iii. 309 and xv. 240, the word signifies the inhabitants 
of Argolis or the North-Eastern Peloponnesos. In the 
other fifteen, it is always applied to the Greek army 
before Troy. 

1 Fragm. 58, and Scut. Here. 216, 229. 2 v. 262. 

3 Ar. Fr. ii. 7. 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 43 

In the Iliad, we have certain cases of the local use. 
Proitos 1 , who was nearly contemporary with Euru- 
stheus, ruled over Argeians. From the text it would 
seem as if he were a neighbour to Sisuphos, of Ephure 
or Corinth : and if so, his subjects may have been Ar- 
gives of Argolis, taken largely; of the Eastern, or Eastern 
and Northern, Peloponnesos. Such is evidently the 
meaning of Argeioi in the legend of the birth of Eu- 
rustheus 2 . On the other hand, the name of Proitos 
was attached to one of the Gates of Thebes. It was 
plainly therefore a Phoenician name. It is far from 
clear that he reigned in Thebes ; but, if he did so, then 
the name Argeioi is applicable to the inhabitants of 
Boeotia. This slender probability is the only presump- 
tion afforded us of the use of the name Argeioi be- 
yond the limits of the Perseid or Pelopid dominions in 
Peloponnesos, except as a designation for the army 
before Troy. Again, in the chariot race of the Twenty- 
third Iliad, Diomed is described as iEtolian by birth, 
but as ruling among Argeioi 3 . 

These, it seems plain, must be the Argives of Argos, 
who formed his contingent. Still, upon this local name 
there had supervened, since the accession of the Pe- 
lopid dynasty, as we shall find from the legend of 
Tudeus, the paramount and wider name of Achaioi 4 . 

The name of Argeioi, then, appears to stand par- 
tially in the same category with Danaoi, as a name 
rather poetic and archaic, than actually current ; and 
as one of which the common application to the Greeks 
in general, at any period, is uncertain ; but which had, 
several generations before, been the proper designation 

1 II. vi. 159. 2 II. xix. 122. 

3 II. xxiii. 470. * II. iv. 384 ; v. 803. 



44 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

at least of the inhabitants of the ruling portion of the 
peninsula. 

This name is, on the other hand, so far unlike the 
Danaan name, that we find it in the singular number 
and the feminine gender. But it is only thus applied 
to two persons ; Helen, and the goddess Here. It is 
plain, as we have seen, that, for the former, it means 
not Greek Helen, but Argive Helen. It is but twice 
given to Here : both times where she is acting with 
Athene in the fifth Iliad 1 ; in the first passage Zeus 
cites them as helpers of Menelaos, in the second, as 
having restrained and bafHed Ares on the field. The 
meaning of Argeie, when applied to a goddess, accord- 
ing to analogy, must be, c worshipped in Argos, 5 as 
Aphrodite is called Kuthereia, and Apollo Smintheus. 
The local worship of Here continued, as is well known, 
to characterize Argos throughout the historic period. It 
was to this local point in particular that her tenacious 
attachment was constantly directed. It survived dy- 
nastic changes ; watched over Eurustheus ; reappeared 
in hatred of Heracles; and protected Agamemnon. 
Three cities, we know, she loved beyond all others 2 : 
My cense, Argos, and Sparta; and her attachment to the 
Greeks in the War possibly may have its root in this 
more special and local affection ; or may, on the other 
hand, be due to the representative character of that 
district as the political centre of the whole of Greece. 

If in one point of view, as has been suggested, the use 
of the Argeian name by Homer was poetic and archaic, 
on the other hand, we may compare this employment of 
the designation of the ruling part to signify the whole 
with the cases of more extended empires. All the races, 

1 II. v. 8, 908. 2 II. iv. 51. 






II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 45 

that served under Xerxes and Darius in their expedi- 
tions against Greece, were regarded as Persians. The 
Roman name was applicable to the people of Cam- 
pania or Calabria, as forming parts of the Roman do- 
minion ; while in any domestic or Italian matter their 
local name would naturally revive. So it may be that 
while all the Greeks of Homer are Argeians on the 
field of Troas, a portion of them may also be Argeians 
in the local sense afterwards given to Argives ; with 
regard, like Kadmeians, iEtolians, Arcadians, or Lo- 
crians, to their own local habitation. 

We have thus traced back this, the second of the 
Great Appellatives for the Greek army, to a more 
ancient and also more limited use for the inhabitants 
of the ruling part of Greece ; but we have still to ask, 
how came it originally to be so applied in either way, 
and what is the root and meaning of the name ? 

Plainly its root is that of the word Argos ; and plainly 
also, as we shall find, the application of the territorial 
name Argos is wider than that of its derivative. 

There are several forms of geographical expression 
under which Homer appears to signify the entire terri- 
tory inhabited by Greek races, or subject to Greek sway. 

{a) The only word which manifestly, without addition 
of any kind, suffices with the Poet for this purpose is 
Achaiis. It is used either substantively, or adjectively 
with yarn or aia, in eight passages. It will suffice to 
quote one in which Nestor describes the gathering of 
the army, a process that manifestly included the whole 
dominion : 

\abv dyelpovres Kar 'A^aii'Sa irovkvfioTeipav 1 . 

1 II. xi. 770. 'Collecting an army through fertile Achaiis.' 
Cf. II. i. 254; vii. 124. 



46 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

In a line twice used, indeed, it is combined with Argos : 

"Apyos is ImrofioTOv Kai 'A^atiSa KaWiyvvaaca 1 . 

But there is no reason why in this line the word should 
not follow what we have seen to be the ruling sense, 
Argos meaning the more famous part, and Achaiis 
meaning the whole, 

(b) A second and compound form of expression, 
evidently conveying, as a compound, the same sense, 
is found in the combination of Argos with Hellas : 

avbpbs, rov ickeos ei/pv mff 'EXXaSa /cat pecrov "Apyos 2 . 

The meaning of the line plainly is, a reputation reaching 
over all Greece. It is not conceivable that Penelope, who 
uses the phrase more than once, could mean to assign 
to her husband's fame a limit narrower than the Greek 
nationality. But we shall find that the name Hellas 
evidently has a special affinity with the north of Greece. 
Presumably, then, this line may mean, 

' Through Northern and through Southern Greece.' 

(c) But we find also a third form of expression, in 
which the word Argos, with the affix nav^ appears to 
cover the whole, at least, of continental Greece, and 
thus to be equivalent, or nearly so, to Achaiis, and 
also to Hellas combined with Argos : 

7roX\f]aiv vrjaoiat Kai "Apye'i navri dvdaaeiv 3 . 

For this line, joining Argos with the islands, describes 
the range of the whole empire, or (to use a modern 
phrase) suzerainty, of Agamemnon. 

1 ' Horse-feeding Argos and Achaiis with beautiful women.' 

2 Od. i. 344- 'Whose fame extends through Hellas and mid- 
Argos.' 

3 II. ii. 108. ' To rule over many islands and all Argos.' 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 47 

(d) Next it appears that we have the word Argos, with 
particular ethnical or tribal affixes, used distributively 
for each of the chief parts of Greece. 

In the Catalogue, after Homer has enumerated all 
the contingents drawn from the Islands, as well as 
from Southern and Middle Greece, he opens a new 
division with the line : 

T$vv av tovs ocraoi to He'Xao'yiKov "Apyos evaiov 1 . 

And he then proceeds to reckon nine contingents^, all 
of which were drawn from Greece north of Mount 
Othrus, or, in other words, from Thessaly. 

It appears, then, that by Pelasgic Argos Homer 
meant Thessaly. 

(e) Next we have an Achaiic Argos mentioned in 
five passages. 

In the first 2 (of which the words are repeated in 
the second), Agamemnon is speaking of the return to 
Greece. While the phrase therefore might carry the 
sense of that country at large, it may also very 
properly mean the seat of the Pelopid power, or the 
Eastern Peloponnesos. 

In the third, Here goes to Achaiic Argos 3 to hasten 
the birth of Eurustheus. The meaning appears to be 
that she went to the kingdom of Sthenelos his father, 
which again will mean the Eastern Peloponnesos. 

In the fourth, Telemachos asks where was Menelaos 
whilst Aigisthos was engaged in the work of treachery 
and murder. c Was he away from Achaiic Argos, and tra- 
velling abroad 4 ?' Here, while Sparta only might (as far 

1 II. ii. 68 1. 'But now (recount) those, as many as inhabited 
Pelasgian Argos.' 

2 II. ix. 141, 283. 3 II. xix. 115. * Od. iii. 249. 



48 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

as the meaning goes) be signified, the sense of c Eastern 
Peloponnesos," or the c Pelopid dominion, 5 is perfectly 
suitable, and appears to be the true sense of the phrase. 
(f) Further we find an Iason Argos. Eurumachos, 
the suitor, pays a compliment to the beauty of Penelope 
by saying, c You would have more suitors than you now 
have, 5 i. e. than these islands yield you : 

el navres ere 'Lboiev av "\acrov "A.pyo$ 'A^atoi \ 

He evidently goes beyond the dominions of Odysseus. 
But then he probably speaks only of the territory lying 
nearest to them, and in habitual intercourse with them. 
Now this was Western Peloponnesos : as we know 
from the limited range of Greek navigation ; from the 
direct testimony of the Poems, which tell us of the 
journey of Odysseus to Ephure 2 , and of the debt which 
Odysseus went to Messene 3 to recover; and (not to 
mention other circumstances) from the apprehension 
of the Suitors that Telemachos would at once repair to 
Elis, or to Pulos 4 , for aid. In the same manner the re- 
lations of Crete were with Eastern Peloponnesos ; and 
therefore Helen at Troy easily recognizes Idomeneus, 
because, as she says, she has often seen him in Sparta 5 . 
So far, then, lasian Argos would seem to consist of 
Western Peloponnesos, including therein the dominions 
of Elis, Pulos, and perhaps parts at least of Messene. 

We have other means of connecting the name of 
Iasos with Western Peloponnesos. For Amphion, the 
king of the Minueian Orchomenos, was the son of 
Iasos. He was also the father of Chloris, whom 

1 ' If all the Achaians of lasian Argos could see you.' 

2 Od. i. 260. 3 Od. xxi. 15. 
i Od. xxiv. 431. 5 II. iii. 232. 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 49 

Neleus married, and who became queen of Pulos. Now 
there was a river Minuei'os 1 between Pi^os and Elis; 
and not only is there an Orchomenos included in the 
places which supplied the Arcadian contingent 2 , but 
also Agamemnon asks of Odysseus, in Hades, whether 
his son Orestes is at Orchomenos, or at Pulos, or at 
Sparta 3 ; as if it were some considerable seat of power 
where a prince might find refuge. Thus Amphion, the 
son of Iasos, is placed in close connection both with 
Bceotia and with Western Peloponnesos. 

Further, Homer acquaints us that he and his brother 
Z ethos first founded and fortified Thebes ; for, says the 
Poet, not even they could hold it unfortified 4 . As his 
daughter married Neleus, this fortification must have 
been effected from four to five generations before the 
Troica. But he founded no dynasty in Thebes. On 
the contrary, we find from Homer that (Edipus ruled 
there, apparently in succession to his father, two genera- 
tions before the War 5 . And, according to tradition, 
he was the descendant of Kadmos, who had colonised 
Thebes from Phoenicia. It seems very possible that 
Amphion, like so many others 6 , was expelled from the 
fat soil of Bceotia ; that he passed into Western Pelo- 
ponnesos; and that he carried thither both the names 
of Orchemenos and Minuei'os, which we find undeniably 
existing in that region, and the name Iasos, which thus 
receives a probable and natural application. 

Iasian Argos then is the Western Peloponnesos. 

And thus moreover we find Argos, with adjuncts, 
running over the three most famous portions of Greece. 
It is the common term in three distinct territorial 



1 11. xi. 722. 


2 11. ii. 605. 


3 Od. xi. 459. 


4 Od. xi. 264. 


5 Od. xi. 273-276. 
E 


6 Thuc. i. 2. 



50 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

names, as if it meant c a settlement/ and as if they 
respectively signified 

i. Thessaly, the settlement named from thePelasgoi. 

2. Eastern Peloponnesos, the settlement named from 
the Achaioi. 

3, Western Peloponnesos, the settlement named from 
Iasos. 

(g) Further, it is incontestable that Argos sometimes 
means the city known in history by that name, or rather 
that city with its immediately contiguous territory: 
for example, in the Catalogue 1 , where it is mentioned 
with Tiruns and other places, as making up the contin- 
gent of Diomed ; and where it is named with Mycenae 
and Sparta as being together the favourite cities of 
Here (iroA^es), The word polis does not indeed in- 
variably include a district ; for in certain cases we find 
it used for the town, in opposition to agros, the 
country 2 . But this seems to be the only case where 
the word is applied to Argos, We have a similar use, 
when, as Telemachos is quitting Sparta, he is joined 
by Theoclumenos, c a fugitive from Argos 3 .' 

On the other hand, the signification, though still 
local, must be enlarged where Agamemnon says that 
Briseis shall pass her life at his palace c in Argos 4 ,' 
since the city of Argos was under the sway of Diomed, 
and the residence of Agamemnon was at Mycense. 
The same will hold good of the passage in which 
Ephure, afterwards Corinth, is described as situate in a 
nook of horse-feeding Argos, /^x^ "Apyeos Ittito^otolo 5 . 

The epithet c horse-feeding' has the effect of showing 
that the country designated is a plain country. Thus 

1 II. ii. 559. 2 II. xxiii. 832, 835 ; Od. xvii. 182. 

3 Od. xv. 223. 4 II. i. 30. 5 II. vi. 152. 






II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 5 1 

the island of Ithaca is described as a goat-feeding 1 
spot, and more beautiful than a horse-feeding district. 
Of course the phrase is to be understood by comparison. 
{h) Lastly, there are one or two passages in which the 
name Argos may be held to stand alone for Greece at 
large : as when Nestor declares it shameful for the army 
to return to Argos ("ApyodSe Uvai 2 ) before the mind of 
Zeus is known. And Poludamas, speaking of the pos- 
sible destruction of the Greek army in Troas, thus de- 
scribes that contingency : 

. vcovvpvovs dnoXeadai an "Apyeos ivda.8 'A^atovs 3 . 

Paris, too, says he brought home property from Argos. 
This may mean from Sparta as part of the Pelopid 
dominion ; or it may mean from Greece at large. But 
perhaps we cannot be sure that in these passages Argos 
stands for more than a description of the whole by its 
capital part. 

Argos, then, with Homer has these four uses : 

1. It may be held to mean, alone or with 7raj>, Greece 
at large ; but, if so, it is rarely thus used. 

2. It may mean the Pelopid dominions, or, taken 
roughly, the Eastern Peloponnesos. 

3. It may mean the city of Argos, with the imme- 
diately surrounding district attached to it. In this 
sense it accepts the epithet Tiokvhtyiov : and the epithets 
ItnrofioTov, TtoKvnvpov, and ovOap apovp-qs, appear to apply 
to it both in this and in the last-named sense. 

4. When joined with distinctive epithets of an 
historical, not a physical, character, it seems to be ap- 
plicable to most portions of Greek territory, as if a 

1 Od. iv. 606. 2 II, ii. 348. 

II. xii. 70. ' That the Achaians perish inglorious away from 
Argos.' 

E % 



52 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

radical signification, such as settlement, or colony in 
the original sense of the word, still adhered to it. 

When we proceed to examine the etymology of the 
word, we find that, as it is but once combined with 
polis, so the epithets attaching to it (as above), all of 
them indicate a tract of country ; like 'land' among the 
Scotch, as in the expression c landward parishes/ And 
again, on comparing it with agros, the proper term for 
describing a rural tract, this latter appears to be the 
very same word with the middle consonants transposed. 
So far, then, the meaning may be that of a tract of 
land suited for, or brought under, cultivation. 

The Homeric names of countries and places, as far 
as we can trace them, appear to be derived — 

i. From an individual founder : as Ithake from Itha- 
kos, Dardanie from Dardanos 1 . 

2. From a race in occupation or in ascendancy : as 
Achai'is from Achaoi, Crete or Cretai, from 
Cretes 2 . 

3. From a race in occupation, which race has itself 
derived its name from features or circumstances of the 
country: as Threke from Threkes, Thracians; the 
race in turn taking a name related to the rough character 
of a highland country, and probably proceeding from 
the same root with Tpijxvs. So again, Aigialeia from 
the Aigialeis, these being named from Aigialos, the 
strip of coast afterwards called Achaia. 

4. From these local features or physical incidents 
directly, like Aigialos: or like Euboie, which ap- 
parently signifies the adaptation of that fertile island 
to tillage ; an adaptation which afterwards made it the 
granary of Athens. 

1 Od. xvii. 207 ; II. xx. 236. 2 Od. xiv. 199. 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 53 

It is plain, negatively, that the word Argos has no 
connection with any o£ the three first-named sources. 
The suggestion already made would attach it to the 
fourth. It would then apply to Argos of the Eastern 
Peloponnesos, as the Argos /car' efox^. 

The word argos is used adjectively by Homer for 
dogs, II. i. 50 ; for oxen, II. xxiii. 30 ; and for a goose, 
Od. xv. 161. And we have these compounds into which 
it enters : 

1. dpyrjs (Kepavvos*). 5. dpyivoeis (Ka/zeipo?). 

2. dpyncepavvos. 6. dpyiodopres (uts). 

3. apyearrjs (Notoj). 7. dpyinodes (kvws). 

4. dpyevvai dies, oOovai. 8. Tlobdpyrjs, a horse of Achilles. 

The sense of whiteness or brightness may apply to 
every one of these uses, both primitive and derivative : 
but whiteness or brightness could only be applicable to 
such districts of country as might be chalky or sandy • 
and this sense therefore will in no way assist us towards 
an explanation of the territorial name Argos with its 
very wide application. 

If Argos have a connection with epyor, then it at 
once admits the sense of an extent of land tilled or 
suitable for tillage, a sense nearly akin, though not 
similar in etymology, to that of the word c lowlands/ 
For ergon in Homer, while it is applicable to indus- 
trial operations generally, is primarily and specially 
applied to agriculture 1 . 

We can, then, conceive how, out of many districts, 
all fitly described as lowlands, in one, from being 
merely a description, it would become a proper name ; 
and how, at the next stage in the process, it would 

1 Od. vi. 259. 



54 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [ 



CHAP. 



give a designation to its inhabitants. In accordance 
with this supposition, we have more than one Argos 
in Homer : and in the historic period we have Argos 
of Orestis in Macedonia, Argos of Amphilochia in 
Western Greece, and Argos near Larissa in Thessaly. 
But only one Argos is inhabited by Argeioi. Just as 
there are Highlands of Saxony no less than of Scotland, 
but only the Scotch mountaineers acquired the name of 
Highlanders, as a standing and ordinary name. 

In referring Argos to a common root and significance 
with Zpyov, we are not bound to hold that it attains its 
initial vowel by junction with the particle a in its in- 
tensive, or in any other, sense. For we have the word 
ergoci, and also its derivatives, in this form, handed 
down from very ancient Greek. Among the four tribes 
of Attica, which subsisted until the time of Cleisthenes, 
one was that of the husbandmen, called Argades. And 
in the Elian Inscription, supposed to date about the 
fortieth Olympiad, or more than six hundred years be- 
fore Christ, we have the word ergon, in the form argon 
with the digamma,, as follows — 

aire fenos aire fapyov 1 . 

Another probable example of the exchange of these 
vowels is in aroo, to plough, compared with era, 
the earth. In the Latin tongue we find both forms 
preserved, in aro, to plough, and sero, to sow, re- 
spectively. 

We need not here inquire what is the common root 
of epyov and of Argos. But, if labour be the idea con- 
veyed, this may perhaps suggest a meaning for the 

1 Museum Criticum, i. 536; and Marsh, Horae Pelasgicae, 
p. 70. 






II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. $$ 

Homeric adjective argos and for all its compounds. 
The groundwork of that meaning may be conveyed by 
the word c strenuous.' Sometimes this takes the form of 
keenness, and then follows the idea of swiftness : some- 
times it takes the form of a persevering patience, and 
then slowness is not less appropriately suggested. The 
labour of a dog is swift, that of an ox is patient: 
hence we have laborious oxen, moving slow ; laborious 
dogs, moving fast. The sense of whiteness legitimately 
attaches to the effect of rapid motion on the eye. 
This explanation will perhaps be found to suit all 
the diversified phrases which have been cited above. 

And (reverting to the fountain-head), we perceive 
that the notion of strenuous labour will adapt itself to 
other uses of Argos. We may consider the name of 
the ship Argo as meaning possibly c swift, 5 but preferably 
c stout,' able to do battle with the waves, as we now say 
a good or a gallant ship. Again, this sense suits, far 
more fully than the mere idea of speed, the noble dog 
Argos of the Odyssey ; for whom mere whiteness would 
be a vapid description. Once more, we have in the 
'ApyzMpovTTis of Homer a glimpse of the tradition of 
Argos the spy, to whom we naturally ascribe a 
strenuous vigilance. The epithet dpyaAeo9, c hard or 
difficult to cope with,' follows in the train : while 
the later word apyovvresK ' idle,' takes up the idea of 
slowness at the point where it passes into inertness. 

When we turn from Argos to its derivative Argeioi, 
we find subsidiary evidence to the effect that the word 
properly meant a husbandman, a rustic. In Suidas 2 we 
have the proverb 'Apyeiovs opas, c You see Argeioi,' 
with the explanation TTapoLfxia em ru>v arev&s koI kcltcl- 
1 Soph. Fr. 288. 2 Suid. in voce. 



56 JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



CHAP. 



nXrjKTLK&s optoVTCDi; 1 . Now we know nothing of the 
Argives as inhabitants of Argolis, which would lead 
to the belief that they stared hard, or conveyed 
alarm by their looks. But if the word Argeioi 
meant husbandmen, then, as the population, instead 
of living dispersedly in ham'ets (kco^SoV) gathered 
into towns, the rural part of the community would 
gradually become also the ruder part, and from this 
point the transition is easy to the sense of a wild 
and savage aspect. 

The Latin word agrestis stands to age r as Argeios, 
according to the foregoing argument, stands to Argos. 
The agrestis, or countryman, was opposed to the ur- 
banus, or townsman. The latter, with its Greek cor- 
relative dcr-eio?, came by degrees to mean a person of 
polished manners ; but agrestis, following the move- 
ment I have supposed in the case of Argeios, came to 
mean coarse, wild, barbarous. Thus Ovid says of the 
River Acheloos, when mutilated by the loss of his horn 
in the combat with Heracles, 

' Vultus Achelous agrestes 
Et lacerum cornu mediis caput abdidit undisV 
And Cicero, after describing the battles of the Spartan 
youth, carried on with nails and teeth as well as fists 
and feet, asks, c Quae barbaries Indica vastior atque 
agrestior 3 ?' 

Again, Suidas gives us the expression 'Apyeiot 4 , which 
he says is used for sheer villains, because the Argeioi 
are held up in plays as noted thieves ; for which he 
refers to a lost play of Aristophanes. According to the 

1 'A proverb concerning people who stare hard and whose 
looks cause alarm.' 2 Ov. Met. ix. 96. 

3 Gic. Tusc. Disp. v. 27. 4 In voc. 'Apyeioi (frapes. 






II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. $] 

view I have given, the word may well mean robbers, 
since theft in the early stages of society always fre- 
quents solitary places. 

Again, iEschines 1 charges Demosthenes with gross 
offences, which had brought upon him disparaging 
nicknames. One of these was Argas; which Suidas 
and Hesychius explain as the name of a snake, signify- 
ing sharp and crafty. But yEschines says he was called 
Argas, each of his guardians having suits against him 
to recover money. So that the meaning would be 
c crafty in getting hold of the money of others/ homo 
trlum liter 'arum , a sharper. 

Once more. Hesychius on the name Argeioi says, 
Ik tcov El\(ar(av ol ttl(tt€v6u.zvoi ovtgjs eAeyozro, rj Xainrpoty 
c those Helots distinguished fo; fidelity are so called.' 
Why was it that select and confidential Helots thus 
received the name of Argeioi ? That name may have 
retained its local force, as applicable to the whole Pelopid 
dominion, long after Homer : and it may also, apart from 
its use as a proper name, have borne the meaning of a free 
or ordinary agricultural settler. The Helot was a serf by 
the fortune of war • but he was a serf whose forefathers 
had, according to this view, been Argeioi. If then a 
Helot made himself conspicuous, and acquired the con- 
fidence of his lord by fidelity and smartness, it would 
seem a very natural reward to efface from him the 
brand of his captivity, and give him the old name of 
the free countryman of that part of Greece. In this 
case Argeios might mean a libertus, without a defined 
formula of emancipation. 

It is worth remark that the cognate word agrios 
appears to have gone through the same process as 
1 De Falsa Legat. p. 41, 1. 14. 



58 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

agrestis and Argeios. For there was an iEtolian 
prince Agrios 1 , a grand-uncle of Diomed, two genera- 
tions before the War of Troy. In the contemporary 
language of the Poet, Agrios had come to mean savage 
and cruel, and is so applied to Poluphemos 2 . The in- 
termediate meaning probably was that of a dweller in 
a wild and unsettled place. The word is never used to 
describe the passion, or the cruelty, of Achilles. 

It should also be noted that Argeioi, where applied 
to the Greeks at large, never means the chiefs, 
but always the mass; whereas the v/ord Achaios has, 
as we shall see, in many places a decided leaning 
towards the aristocracy. Epithets are scarcely ever 
given by Homer to the Argeian name. Only in four 
passages do they appear. In II. iv. 242 they are lofxapoi 
and iKeyx^Sy ' dishonoured :' in II. xiv. 479 toVcopot 3 , and 
aireiAaooz; cucoprjToi. These are in each case, not descrip- 
tive epithets attaching to or indicating general character, 
but reproaches growing out of the occasion. In II. xxi. 
429 they are dwprfKToi, clad in breastplates, which, 
from the context, seems to do no more than state 
a fact : the phrase is equivalent to c the Greeks in 
arms. 5 In II. xix. 269, the Argeioi are called <£iAo7iro'- 
Ae/xot, lovers of battle; and this appears to be the 
sole passage in which an epithet of description, pro- 
perly so called, is attached to the word. But the 
Danaan name, though more rarely used, has epithets 
in twenty-two passages; and the Achaian name in 

1 II. xiv. 117. 2 Od. ix. 215, 494. 

3 I render to/zcopoi, not archers, a sense neither suited to the 
passage nor to the general armament of the Greeks, who were 
not as a rule archers ; but braggarts, loud talkers, in close har- 
mony with the sister-phrase dneiXdvv di<6pr]Toi = insatiate of boasts. 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 59 

nearly 130. This circumstance tends to show, that 
the Argeian name properly belongs to the commonalty 
or masses, rather than to the chiefs. 

We have assumed above, in accordance with the 
general Greek tradition, that the Pelasgoi were the 
first agricultural settlers of the peninsula ; but that 
their name, and any other cognate names, were sup- 
pressed or thrown into the shade by the dynastic 
name, which a Danaos probably gave to his people. 
That name, again, naturally disappearing with the acces- 
sion of another line to his throne and dominions, the 
name Argeioi, taken either from the occupation of the 
people (like Argades), or from the settlement they 
had made, would take its place with great propriety, 
in lieu of reverting to the Pelasgic name, which would 
silently pass out of use, as that of a race conquered and 
therefore comparatively depressed. 

The third and most weighty of the Great Appella- 
tives is Achaioi. 

The evidence of the Poems will I think suffice to 
show — 

1. That this is the most familiar designation of the 
Greeks of Homer. 

2. That the manner of its use indicates, among the 
Greeks of Homer, the political predominance of an 
Achaian race over other races ranged by its side in the 
War, and composing along with it the nation which 
owned Agamemnon for its head. 

3. That, besides its national use, the name of the 
Achaioi has a local use in many parts of Greece. 

4. That the manner of this local use points out with 
sufficient clearness, that the rise of the Achaian name 
was contemporary with that of the family of Pelops. 



60 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

The first proposition may be at once settled by the 
rude, but not inconclusive, test of numbers. While the 
Danaan name is used about 160 times, of which thirteen 
are in the Odyssey- and the Argeian 205 times, of 
which twenty-eight are in the Odyssey; the Achaian 
name is used about 597 times in the Iliad, and 117 
in the Odyssey, making 714 in all. This frequency 
of use in the two poems of itself goes far to determine 
that the Achaian designation was the most modern 
of the three. 

It is also worth observing, that in the opening of 
the Iliad the word Achaioi is used five times, before 
Danaoi or Argeioi are introduced at all. 

We have seen that the Danaan name is never used in 
the singular; and that the Argeian name is so used only 
in its local sense. But the Achaian name, and that 
only, is used in the singular to designate an individual 
as belonging to the nation; with the reserve, however, 
of a separate shade of meaning, sometimes 1 tending 
to attach it to a class. So the Poet uses Aapbavos avrip 2 
for a Trojan or a Dardanian. 

Again, Homer has worked this name into the female 
forms Achaiides, Achaiiades, Achaiai, to signify 
the women of Greece ; but has made no such use of 
the Danaan or Argeian 3 names. 

Also the phrase vUs 'Axai&v, sons of the Achaians, 
has no correlation with the Danaan or Argeian names, 
and further helps to show the predominant familiarity 
of this designation. What the patronymic was to the 
individual, this form of speech was to the nation — an 
appeal to a standard of honour, an incentive under 
the form of an embellishment. 

1 II. iii. 167, 226. 2 II. ii. 701. 3 Supra, pp. 36, 44. 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 6 1 

Epithets are given to the name Achaioi in 130 
places, besides eight or ten more in which they are 
used either for the women, or for the word in its 
territorial sense. And the familiar use of the word 
Achaiis for the country is a proof of the prevalence, 
ascendancy, and familiarity of the name, which was 
thus applied on its own merits, so to speak, and not, 
like Argos, because it was the proper designation of 
the most eminent part of the country. 

When we look to the character of these epithets, 
we find them such as point to the Achaians in the 
character of a dominant race or aristocracy. 

In one or two cases we have epithets of reproach, 
such as were addressed to the army at critical mo- 
ments: avakKibzs, II. XV. 326; aTretA^rrypes', II. vii. 96, 
and in the same passage 'Axadbes. In a few others we 
have them as simple descriptions of circumstances of 
the moment 1 . But the pointed epithets, descriptive 
of character, are as follows : — 

i. 8tof, worthy or noble: II. v. 451 ; Od. iii. 161, 
et alibi. 

2. eAuw77€?, from the rapid motion of the eye giving 
brightness : II. iii. 389, et alibi. 

3. evKvriiJuhes, stoutly-greaved : II. iii. 304; Od. iii. 
149, and in thirty-two other places. 

4. rjpats, heroes : II. xii. 1 65, et alibi. 

5. Kapr]KO[jL6ctiVT€Sy with flowing or abundant hair : II. 
ii. 11 - y Od. i. 90, and in twenty-seven other places. 

6. fityaOvfjioi, high-spirited: II. i. 123, 135; Od.xxiv.57. 

7. fxivea 7n>eiWre?, ardent: II. iii. 8. 

8. ya\KOKvr)ixiheS) with greaves of x^kos or copper: 
II. vii. 41. 

1 II. xii. 29 ; xiii. 15 ; xv. 44. 



62 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

9. yja\KoyiT<aveS) with armour for tunics: II. i. 371 j 
Od. i. 286, and in twenty-two other places. 

10. v-ntpKvbavTes-, exulting: II. iv. 66, 71. 

11. aprjlcpikoi, lovers of war: II. vi. J^h xy i* 3°3i 
xvii. 319. 

12. 0iAo7TToAe//ot 5 lovers of battle: II. xvii. 224. 
These epithets are very marked in character • they 

describe courage, personal beauty, well-made and well- 
finished arms, or excellence generally. 

The epithets given to Danaoi are exclusively those 
of a soldiery: those of Achaioi are more extended, and 
seem to extend to nobility of race. 

The epithet dios is, in my opinion, wrongly trans- 
lated c divine ;' and much confusion arises from the 
attempt to apply that sense to the various uses of the 
word. But if we understand it to mean a limited or 
special excellence, excellence in its own kind, we have 
no difficulty in understanding how Eumaios * and Cly- 
temnestra 2 can both receive it, the one for his trusty 
character, the other, the sister of Helen, for her beauty. 
There is, however, one other sense which might be given 
to it, that of high-born, well-descended, which perhaps 
would not be less adapted to all the cases of its use. 

In the plural, Homer applies it to Achaians and 
Pelasgians only. This rare use supplies a presumption 
of some peculiar meaning- and it may be thought that 
the Achaians are blot because both of their blood and 
of their power and predominance, the Pelasgians be- 
cause of their antiquity. 

It is Thersites, who in the Second Iliad attempts 
to stir up the soldiery by calling them Achaiides, or 
she-Greeks. It is to be noted, that in his short speech, 
1 Od. xiv. 48, and in ten other places. 2 Od. iii. 266. 



II 



.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES 6$ 



of which an inflated presumption is the principal 
mark, the Achaian name is used five times within 
nine lines, and neither of the other names is used 
at all. In two of these cases, the speaker pointedly 
calls himself an Achaian. Probably the upstart and 
braggart uses this name only because it was the most 
distinguished or aristocratic name, as an ill-bred person 
always takes peculiar care to call himself a gentleman. 
There are, however, numerous single passages, in 
which the simple term Achaioi appears from the 
context to have a special, sometimes perhaps even 
an exclusive reference to the chiefs and leaders, or 
to the officers and higher class, of the army. And 
if this be so, then we must consider the national use of 
the name as derivative like that of Argeioi, the whole 
being named from the prime part ; but with this dif- 
ference, that in the case of Achaioi it is the prime 
blood of the country, in that of Argeioi the prime 
seat of power. 

The injured priest, Chruses, solicits all the Achaioi, 
and most of all the two Atridai. All the Achaians 
assent, except Agamemnon 1 . There is no sign that 
he solicited the army. In truth, this could only be 
done in an Assembly; and there was no Assembly. It 
follows, that the Achaioi here mean the chiefs. But 
when Chruses invokes the vengeance of the god upon 
the army at large, the phrase alters to Danaoi 2 . 

The actual division of booty is, from the nature 
of the case, a matter that must have rested principally 
or wholly in the hands of the chiefs. When this 
matter is referred to, Agamemnon says, Do not let me, 
alone of the Argeians, that is, of all the Greeks, go 

1 II. i. 15, 22, 26-32. 2 II. i. 42. 



64 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

without a prize 1 • and Nestor uses the same word, 
when he stimulates the army at large by the hope of 
booty 2 . But Achilles replies to Agamemnon that the 
Achaians have no means of compensating him 3 there and 
then, since they hold no common stock in reserve. The 
phrase is the same in subsequent passages 4 . So far then 
the Achaian name seems to fall especially to the chiefs. 

The same leaning may be observed, when reference 
is made to other governing duties. Achilles, in his ad- 
juration by the staff or sceptre, the symbol of governing 
power, describes it as borne by the sons of the Achaians, 
obviously the kings, chiefs, or persons in authority. 

When Priam on the wall of Troy inquires from 
Helen the names of two prominent commanders, he 
both times asks, who is that Achaian 5 ? and in the 
second case, the king describes him as out-topping the 
Argeians by his head and his broad shoulders. Here 
the Achaian seems to mean the prince or noble ; the 
Argeians, the soldiery at large. Indeed, the words are 
hardly susceptible of any other construction ; and they 
seem almost to warrant of themselves the conclusion 
that the Achaian name is properly that of a dominant 
race, grown, generally speaking, into a class, and pos- 
sibly including others of that class, although not of 
Achaian descent. 

In the historic ages of Greece, the Achaian name 
acquired a local force, similar to that of the Argive 
name, in exclusive, or almost exclusive, connection 
with one particular district. We cannot say that it 

Ml. i. it8. 2 ii. ii. 350-356. Ml. i. 123. 

4 II. i. 135, 262, 392 ; ii. 227. In II. ii. 256 the giving is by the 
rjpaes Aavaol. The passage has the obelos ; but it is not out of 
harmony with my argument. 5 II. iii, 167, 226. 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 65 

has in this sense, if strictly taken, a local use in 
Homer. Yet we find the Achaians in many parts of 
Greece mentioned in such a way, as to distinguish 
them from other inhabitants of the country, either in 
the same or in neighbouring tracts. 

1. We have already seen that the name Achaioi 
had come into use among the people of Mycenas and 
of Argos a generation before the War ; and that it is 
used of them in contradistinction to the Kadmeioi of 
Bceotia 1 . At earlier epochs they are called Argeioi; 
but we are not to suppose that this name had fallen 
into local desuetude, even though the other might be 
more in vogue. We shall see that the Myrmidons of 
Achilles afford us an example of a race, or body, who 
bore more names than one. 

2. It has also been shown that, in the legend of 
the Eleventh Iliad about the Epeian War, the Pulian 
party are called Achaians at the period of the youth of 
Nestor; and this in apparent contradistinction to 
their opponents, who therefore were not Achaian at 
all at that time, or not Achaian in the same eminent 
sense. 

3. The troops of Achilles, always called Myrmidons 
among the other divisions of the army in the field, 
inhabited, as we find from the Catalogue, Hellas and 
Phthie 2 , and bore, evidently with some distinctive 
force, the name of Hellenes, and likewise that of 
Achaioi 3 . In the Ninth Iliad, Achilles describes 
the women of the same tract of country asAchaiides 4 . 
On the origin of the name c Myrmidon,' which this 

1 II. iv. 384 ; v. 803 ; vi. 223. 2 II. ii. 683. 

3 II. ii. 624. 4 II. ix. 395. 

F 



66 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

division of the army had wholly to itself. Homer 
throws no light. Hellenes they were, as inhabitants 
of Hellas 1 in the special sense of the word. And as 
the Achaian name in Homer is not territorial, we 
must suppose them to have borne it in virtue of their 
blood, the Myrmidons being probably a subdivision 
of the great Achaian family. 

4. Of the five races 2 who inhabited Crete at the 
time of the Troica, four were named Eteocretes, 
Pelasgoi, Kudones, and Dorieis: the fifth, which is 
named first, perhaps by reason of political predomi- 
nance, was Achaian. The appearance in this passage 
of the Dorian name together with the Achaian, sub- 
divides, more pointedly than any other passage in 
the Poems, the Hellenic family. 

5. Again, a portion of the force of Diomed is de- 
scribed as composed of those c who held iEgina and 
Mases, Achaian youths V The site of Mases appears 
to be unknown. But tradition, according to Pausanias, 
gave the name of Pelops to the small islands off the 
coast of Troizen 4 . Such a tradition corresponds 
remarkably with the indirect testimony of the verse 
I have quoted, if there be a relation, as I suppose, 
between the rise of the family of Pelops and the 
predominance of the Achaians. 

6. On turning to the dominions of Odysseus, we 
find that three names are used to describe their in- 
habitants: Kephallenes, Ithakesioi, and Achaioi. 

The first is used four times in the Odyssey 5 , and 
is the distinctive name in the Iliad of the military 

1 See infra, Chap. IV. 2 Od. xix. 175-177. 3 II. ii. 562. 

4 Paus. ii. 34. 4, p. 191. 5 Od. xxi. 210; xxiv. 354, 377, 428. 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 67 

contingent led by Odysseus. We shall find that it 
appears to indicate the predominance of the Hellenic 
element K 

The Suitors 2 are ordinarily called 'Axaioi', never 
'Apyetot or Aavaoi. They constituted the aristocracy 
of the islands. It appears that either they were an 
Achaian race, or else they were called Achaian because 
they were an aristocracy. 

The sway of Odysseus appears to have depended 
upon his personal qualities. Like his father Laertes 3 , 
he was both a conqueror and an economist. Accord- 
ingly, his long absence is fatal to his power ; though 
Menelaos, after an absence almost as long 4 , resumed 
his throne without impediment. When Odysseus 
re-appears, his final proceedings against the Suitors 
are attended with precautions, evidently dictated by 
his fear of the people. And in the Assembly of the 
last Book, whilst more than one half take up arms 
against him 5 , the rest simply remain neutral : he has 
no positive aid to rely on, except that of his father, 
his son, and a mere handful of immediate dependants. 
During his absence the Suitors are ruining him, but 
are not said to oppress the people. All this looks as 
if his family was perhaps of foreign or extraneous origin, 
and in any case had recently attained to power. 

Autolucos, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, 
resided at Parnesos in Phokis 6 : Penelope has no 
trace of connection with Southern Greece : her sister 
Iphthime was married to Eumelos, heir-apparent of 

1 Infra, Chap. IV. 2 Od. ii. 51 ; xvi. 122. 

3 Od. xxiv. 205-207, 377. 4 Od. iv. 82. 

5 Od. xxiv. 463. 6 Od. xix. 394. 
F 2 



68 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Pherai in Thessaly 1 . Of Arkeisios, the father of 
Laertes, with whom the genealogy begins, we have 
no trace in Ithaca. But we do hear of an eponymist 
or founder, Ithacos 2 , who, with Neritos the eponymist 
of the chief mountain of the island, and Poluctor, 
constructed the fountain, from which the city was 
supplied with water. A descendant of this Poluctor, 
probably his son, by name Peisandros 3 , appears, with 
the title of an ax, among the leading Suitors. He 
may not impossibly have represented a family, dis- 
placed by Laertes from the sovereignty of this island 
dominion. I say by Laertes, because if Arkeisios 
had founded the sovereignty in Ithaca, it appears 
probable that Odysseus would have taken his patro- 
nymic from that personage, and not from his father. 

But, apart from the question to what root the 
family of Odysseus is to be referred, it seems plain 
that either the Suitors, being the aristocracy, were 
Achaian in blood- or, because they were the aris- 
tocracy, they fell under the designation of Achaians. 

When the mass of the people are gathered in 
Assembly, they are invariably addressed, not as 
Achaioi, but as Ithakesioi 4 . And when, instead 
of the inhabitants of the island, the subjects through- 
out the dominion are spoken of, they are called 
Kephallenes, the name always given to the military 
division in the Iliad 5 . 

When the Suitor Eurumachos expresses a misgiving 
lest, in lieu of Penelope, it should prove he would 
have done more wisely in courting some other dame, 

1 Od. iv. 798. 2 Od. xvii. 203-207. 3 Od. xviii. 299. 

4 Od. ii. 25, 161, 229 ; xxiv. 453, 531. 5 Od. xxiv. 354. 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. 69 

he says there are many (other) AchaiidesHn Ithaca, 
and in the other territories. This must surely refer 
to women of noble birth. 

It is true that, in the Second Odyssey, Telemachos 
summons c the Achaians 5 to the Assembly 2 . But we 
find in Scherie that principal persons only seem to 
have been summoned man by man 3 , though all classes 
usually attended. Again, in the Ithacan Assembly 
of the Twenty- fourth Book, Eupeithes complains 
of the harm Odysseus has done the Achaians 4 . The 
Suitors, whom he has slain, were (he says) far and 
away, the apioroi, the aristocracy, of the Kephallenes. 
This is exactly conformable to the view I have taken. 
When Eupeithes ceases, we are told that pity seized 
all the Achaians 5 . This seems to mean the party 
of the Suitors, those allied with them by blood or 
interest, or near them in station. For, shortly after, 
the Assembly divides, part taking arms against 
Odysseus, and part, by the advice of Halitherses, 
remaining neutral. 

We have also to consider the word Panachaioi. 
It is used eleven times in Homer. We cannot take 
it for a mere synonym of Achaioi. Seven times 
out of the eleven, it appears in the expression apio-ryes 
Uavayai&v. In conformity with the sense of the word 
nap, we may assign to the compound a cumulative 
and collective force: so that Panachaioi would mean 
the entire body of the Achaians, or all classes of the 
Greeks. In the other passages 6 where the word 
occurs, this sense is very suitable, and especially in 

1 Od. xxi. 251. 2 Od. ii. 7. 3 Od. viii. 11. 

4 Od. xxiv. 426. 5 Od. xxiv. 438. 

6 II. ix. 300 ; Od. i. 239 ; xiv. 369 ; xxiv. 32. 



70 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [ 



CHAP. 



the passage of the Iliad where Odysseus, interceding 
with Achilles, says, c If you do not care for Agamemnon, 
yet pity the Panachaioi, 3 or the Greeks at large 1 . 

I have now collected the particulars connected with 
the use of the three Great Appellatives in Homer, and 
presented them to the reader sufficiently, as I hope, 
for certain purposes. These purposes are, first to 
establish in their due order the succession of the 
periods at which they had respectively obtained some 
root in the country: next to show that the most 
proper national name of the Greeks at the time of 
Homer, the name most nearly approaching to what we 
mean by a national name, was that of the Achaioi: 
thirdly, to exhibit, as the specific shades of meaning 
attaching to the three Appellatives respectively, (1) for 
Danaoi, the soldiery, the people in warfare- (2) for 
Argeioi, the masses, the people engaged in tillage; 
(3) for Achaioi, the chiefs or aristocracy, the people 
regarded through the governing class. 

This class, and the race that formed it, appear to me 
to be entitled to a more separate and concentrated 
attention than it has as yet received in the investi- 
gation of Greek history. It forms a distinct type of 
Hellenic character, the earliest in time, and certainly 
not the least remarkable in grandeur or in complete- 
ness. The Greek of Homer is neither the man of 
Athens nor the man of Sparta : he is neither cast in 
the Dorian nor in the Ionian pattern : he is the 
Achaian Greek. Simple, and yet shrewd; passionate, 
and yet self-contained ; brave in battle, and gentle in 
converse ; keenly living in the present, yet with a c large 
discourse 5 over the future and the past; as he is in 

1 II. ix. 300. 



II.] THE THREE GREAT APPELLATIVES. J L 

body c full-limbed and tall, 5 so is he in mind towering 
and full-formed. His portrait could never have been 
drawn but from the life : and, disregarding what 1 
conceive to have been the figments of the first renais- 
sance after the wild and rude Dorian revolution, I set 
down Homer himself as the Achaian painter of his 
own kith and kin. 

It will however be requisite to inquire, 

i. What light can be thrown on the origin of the 
Achaian name through the growth of the power that 
brought it into vogue. 

2. How it was superseded j and what place the 
three Appellatives respectively occupy in the later 
tradition and literature. 

But this will best be done after we have examined 
and illustrated, as far as may be, the Homeric use of 
other national and tribal names, especially four of 
them, which, though of much rarer occurrence, are 
of an importance scarcely second to the names already 
discussed. These are — 

i. Pelasgoi. 

2. Hellenes. 

3. Phoinikes. 

4. Aiolidai. 

We may then sketch in outline the relative posi- 
tion of the families or races respectively embraced by 
these Appellatives, and consider what they severally 
contributed to the formation of the great Greek 
nationality. 



CHAPTER III. 



The Pelasgoi. 



Respecting the Pelasgoi, we have some direct and 
some indirect testimony from Homer. And we have 
also certain supplements to this Homeric infor- 
mation — 

(1) In the later Greek and classical tradition; 

(2) In the results of modern ethnological and archae- 
ological research. 

The direct testimony of Homer establishes — 

The wide extension of the Pelasgoi. 

The country afterwards called Thessaly bears in the 
Iliad the name of Pelasgic Argos 1 . It furnished to the 
Greek army nine contingents, and 280 ships, or about 
one fourth of the entire fleet. And this seems to be 
the only name which it bears as a whole. The line, in 
which this name is given, is evidently prefatory to 
the great Thessalian division of the Catalogue 2 . Pe- 
lasgic Argcs appears to be included with other countries 
in the wider name of Hellas ; a name which probably 
may also have had an especial application to the part 

] II. ii. 681. 2 Studies on Hcmer, vol. i. pp. 100-105. 



THE PELASGOI, 73 



of Thessaly ruled by Peleus, and inhabited by the 
Myrmidons. 

It further appears, from the Odyssey, that the Pelas- 
goi were one of the five nations of Crete 1 . 

And we learn from the Trojan Catalogue in the 
Second Iliad, that the Pelasgoi of Larissa served in 
the War among the allies of Troy 2 . 

The facts thus exhibited, though few and simple, 
indicate the wide extension of the Pelasgoi, who 
thus appear on both sides, in a war which draws the 
armies engaged in it from so considerable an extent 
of country. 

But further; Zeus, the Zeus of Dodona, the Zeus 
served by Hellic interpreters of his will, is, in the most 
solemn invocation of the Iliad, addressed as Pelasgic 
Zeus 3 by Achilles, the greatest representative of the 
Hellenic mind and life. 

This was at a period of complete and well estab- 
lished Hellenic predominance. The name Pelasgicos 
is, then, evidently an archaic name of Zeus ; and it is 
not easy to see how he could have received it, unless 
the inhabitants of the country from Dodona, at least as 
far as the kingdom of Peleus, had been known as 
Pelasgoi. The concurrent evidence of this passage 
with that of the line in which all Thessaly is called 
Pelasgic Argos, appears to demonstrate that Thessaly 
had formerly been known as a country of Pelasgoi, 
and that these Pelasgoi were worshippers of Zeus. 

Accordingly, of the nine Thessalian contingents, 
seven are described by the places they inhabit, without 
any national or tribal name. It is probable that in 

1 Od. xix. 177. 2 II. ii. 840. 3 II. xvi. 233. 



74 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

these districts the Pelasgian name had not yet been 
superseded by any other designation for the purposes 
of familiar use. The only territorial name used in this 
part of the Catalogue, besides Pelasgic Argos, is in the 
case of the eminently Hellenic dominions of Peleus. 

When Homer names the Pelasgoi of the Trojan 
Catalogue, he describes them as those Pelasgoi who 
inhabited the deep-loamed Larissa 1 . He therefore dis- 
tinguishes them from other Pelasgoi. But he cannot 
possibly mean, in composing for a Greek audience, 
to distinguish them from the only other Pelasgoi 
mentioned by him, those of Crete, who are not named 
in the Catalogue or in the Iliad at all. It is likely, 
then, that he refers to other Pelasgoi of the Trojan 
army ; of which the two contingents immediately pre- 
ceding this one are described without any national or 
tribal designation. 

Again, the Poet does not simply say, c Hippothoos 
led Pelasgians/ but, c he led tribes (<pvka) of Pelasgians,' 
thus pointing again to a variety of tribes comprised 
under that name. This has been observed by Strabo 2 . 

If in general the Achaians were paramount, and the 
Pelasgoi were subordinate members of one and the 
same community, it is not difficult to see why Homer 
should nowhere apply the Pelasgian name to any 
portion of the Greek army ; and again, why the same 
scruples should not bind him as to a portion of the 
Trojan force. 

He has pursued an exactly similar course with 
respect to the Thracians. He mentions them in the 
Trojan Catalogue, and again in the Trojan army 3 . 

1 II. ii. 841. 2 xiii. 3, p. 620. a II. ii. 844; x. 434. 



III.] THE PELASGOI. >] $ 

They have no recognised place among the Greeks, 
and yet Thamuris,, evidently a Greek, is described 
as Thracian 1 . And the word Threx seems to mean 
Highlander, in opposition to Pelasgos as Lowlander. 
Probably Thracians existed diffusively, like Pelasgians, 
among the Greeks ; but were absorbed in designations 
more prominent and splendid. 

We have yet a third example. The Kaukones appear 
in the Tenth Iliad as part of the Trojan force 2 . They 
are nowhere found in the Greek host, or in the Greek 
Catalogue. But in the Odyssey, where there was no 
reason for keeping the name in the background, as 
the same national distinctions did not require to be 
kept in view, Homer mentions the Kaukones appa- 
rently as a people dwelling on the west side of Greece, 
for the Pseudo-Mentor 3 is going among them from Ithaca 
to claim payment of a debt. They were probably, then, 
near neighbours. He distinguishes them as high- 
spirited, fxeydOviJLOL : which reminds us of the reverence 
he has shown for the ancient possessors of the country 
by calling the Pelasgians dioi. 

Again, Homer, in the three passages where he names 
Pelasgians, names them each time with a laudatory 
epithet ; a circumstance deserving some notice, when 
we observe to how small a proportion of his national 
or tribal names epithets are attached. 

Once he calls them iyx^^poiS addicted to the 
spear. He elsewhere uses this epithet but thrice ; 
once for the Arcadians 5 , whom, in the only other 
place where they are named, he describes as skilled 
in fight ; once for two royal warriors individually 6 ; 

1 II. ii. 594-600. 2 II. x. 429; xx. 329. 3 Od. iii. 366. 

* II. vii. 134. 5 II. ii. 611. 6 II. ii. 692. 



7 6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

and once for the Myrmidons 1 . This epithet then is 
of high rank as describing valour. 

On the other two occasions he calls the Pelasgians 
dioi 2 . This epithet implies, sometimes perhaps a nar- 
row, but always a special and peculiar excellence. And 
it is one which Homer allows to no race except only 
the Pelasgians and Achaians 3 . There is no difficulty 
in explaining the latter use of it. The former is also 
appropriate, if we suppose the Pelasgoi to be the 
ancient and primary base of the Greek nation. 

The leaders of the Pelasgoi before Troy are 
themselves the sons of Pelasgos, who was the son of 
Teutamos. 

Only then in five places altogether does Homer 
give us traces of this name or its derivatives. But 
this affords no presumption adverse to the hypothesis 
that the Pelasgians were the base of the Greek nation ; 
because it is his uniform practice to throw into the 
background whatever tends to connect the Hellenic 
race with foreign origin or blood; and the currency 
of the Pelasgian name beyond the limits of Greece, 
and among its foes, evidently had this tendency in a 
marked degree. 

The Larisse 4 mentioned in the Trojan Catalogue 
appears once more 5 ; and on both occasions it has 
an epithet denoting fertility. The tendency of this 
epithet is to show that the Pelasgoi were an agri- 
cultural and settled people. Of this we shall find 
other signs. 

When we come to the historic age, we find many 

1 Od. iii. i38. 2 II. x. 429; Od. xix. 177. 

3 II. v. 451, et alibi. i II. ii. 841. 5 II. xvii. 301. 



III.] THE PELASGOI. 77 

Larisses 1 ; and the mere name is commonly believed 
to indicate a seat of the Pelasgians. Bat in Homer 
we have only one Larisse. A possible explanation is, 
that Larisse was properly the name of a fort or place of 
refuge, somewhat like the bell-towers of Ireland and 
other countries, to which the people of the district be- 
took themselves for refuge on an emergency, from their 
dwellings in the surrounding country. Around these 
forts, as happened in our own country about the feudal 
castles, towns would gather by a gradual process. 
And so the application of the word Larisse to the 
town conjointly with the district 2 , of which we seem 
to have this single example in Homer, might by degrees 
become common. That which was an Argos, or settle- 
ment for tillage, in the original or Pelasgian stage, 
might, after wars had taught the necessity of defence, 
become in some cases a Larisse; while in others the 
old name might continue : or the one name might be 
applied to the part for habitation, the other to the part 
for defence. This hypothesis is supported by the fact 
that the citadel of the historic Argos, which stood 
upon an eminence, was called Larisse 3 . 

Such are the direct notices of the Pelasgoi in 
Homer. They are scanty in amount. But there are 
three other heads of Homeric evidence relating to 
them. 

i. The signs of alliance between the Pelasgoi and 
the inhabitants of particular parts of the country : 

2. The signs of a difference of race, pervading the 



1 Cramer's Greece, vol. iii. p. 244. 

2 Gomp. evpvxopos Qrjfir), and the passage Od. xi. 260-265. 

3 Strabo viii. 6, p. 370. 



78 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

population, and more or less running parallel with 
differences of rank: 

3. The signs of an occupation of the country prior 
to that by the Hellenic tribes : 

Independently of another head of inquiry, to be dealt 
with at a later stage, namely the relation of the Trojan 
to the Greek race: 

And, again, independently of evidence supplied by 
the later tradition. 

• i. The Arcades 1 of Homer show signs of connection 
with the Pelasgoi. 

In the Catalogue the Arcades are described as ayx^o.- 
XV Ta h or heavy-armed 2 ; and we are also told that they 
had no care for maritime pursuits. In both respects, 
their relation to the people of Troas is remarkable. 
Homer nowhere else uses the epithet except for the 
Dardanians, whose position in Troas resembled that of 
the Arcadians in Peloponnesos. And the Trojans were 
so destitute of vessels, that the shipwright who built 
for Paris is mentioned as on that account a notable 
character 3 . Nor do we hear of a Trojan ship in any 
case but his. Heavy-armed troops are furnished by 
a settled peasantry, light-armed by a population of 
less settled habits. The absence of maritime pursuits 
tends to imply a pacific character, in an age when 
enterprise by sea was so intimately connected with 
kidnapping and rapine. Arcadia was not a poor 
country. In historic times it was, next to Laconia, 

1 Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 29, sets down as Pelasgian 
the Arcadians, the Argives, probably all the original inhabitants 
of Peloponnesos, the Ionians, and the people of Attica and 
Thessaly. 

2 II. ii. 604, 614. 3 II. v. 54-64. 



III.] THE PELASGOI. 79 

the most populous province of Peloponnesos 1 . In the 
Troica it supplied sixty ships with large crews 2 . All 
this is accordant with Pelasgian associations. 

Again, the Arcadians were commanded by Agapenor 3 
the son of Ankaios. But Ankaios was of iEtolia. 
Ships supplied by Agamemnon 4 , and a chief not indi- 
genous, tend to mark the Arcadians as politically sub- 
ordinate, therefore as Pelasgian. 

At the funeral games of Amarunkeus there were 
present Epeians, Pulians, and iEtolians 5 ; that is to 
say, all the neighbouring tribes except the Arcadians. 
Now the Homeric indications respecting the origin of 
games, in a marked manner tend to connect them, as 
we shall find, with sources other than Pelasgic 6 . 

In the Seventh Iliad, Nestor relates that in his youth 
the Pulians and Arcadians fought, near the river Iar- 
danos. The former seem to have been victorious; 
which accords with the military inferiority of Pelasgoi 
to an Hellenic force. Clearly, when Nestor killed 
their king Ereuthalion 7 , it was by the aid of Pallas ; 
and Pallas, we shall find, is always a Hellenising deity 
against Pelasgians. The Pulians, as we have seen, are 
Achaian in a special degree. 

In marked accordance with this indirect testimony, 
the later tradition places Lucaon son of Pelasgos in 
Arcadia ; represents the people as autochthonous ; and 
makes the district compete with Argolis for having 
given them their first seat in Peloponnesos. 

We have here, too, some aid from philology. The 

1 Xen. Hell. vii. 1.23. Cramer, iii. 299. 2 II. ii. 610. 

3 II. ii. 609; xxiii. 630-635. * II. ii. 612. 

5 II. xxiii. 630-635. 6 See infra, Gh. V. 7 II. vii. 154. 



80 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Arcadians called themselves UpoaiX-qvoiy which is com- 
monly rendered c anterior to the moon.' Now it is 
difficult to see why the moon, which continually waxes, 
wanes, and disappears, should be selected as the type of 
stability and longevity among natural objects, But if 
we refer the origin of the word to irpb and 2eAAot 
or SeAArjues, then it becomes the appropriate form in 
which the Arcadian, or Pelasgian, people assert their 
priority in the Peloponnesos to the Hellic or Sellic 
races. 

Until very late in the historic period, the Arcadians 
remained an undistinguished people. But they were 
the Swiss of Greece ; and they supplied a hardy soldiery 
to any state in want of mercenary assistance, without 
reference to attachments of race as between Dorian 
and Ionian. With the Lacedaemonians they invaded 
Attica : with the Thebans they invaded Lacedaemon 2 : 
in the great siege of Syracuse, one contingent fought by 
the side of the invaders, the other along with the be- 
sieged 2 . 

2. The Ionians (Iaones) are but once mentioned in 
Homer. They are one of five divisions appointed, in 
the Thirteenth Iliad 3 , to meet the attack of Hector, 
when that attack is destined to prevail. The others 
are the Locrians, Phthians, Epeians, and Boiotians. 
The same spirit of nationality, which prevents Homer 
from allowing any eminent Greek chieftain to be slain 
or wounded in fair conflict with the Trojans, appar- 
ently leads him in this place to select, (perhaps with the 
exception of the Epeians 4 ,) some of the less distin- 

1 Xen. Hell. vii. i. 23. 2 Thuc. vii. 57. 3 v. 635. 

* They have laudatory epithets in II. xi. 732 and xiii. 636. 
They were, however, worsted by the men of Pulos. 



III.] THE PELASGOI. 8 1 

guished portions of the army to resist the Trojans, on 
an occasion when the resistance is to be ineffectual. 
The Myrmidons are of necessity absent : but he might 
have placed in the post of danger those troops whom 
he pointedly commends, the troops of Agamemnon, or 
the Abantes 1 . Our finding the Ionians among un- 
distinguished contingents tends to fix upon them a like 
character. 

Further, they are called eAKex^ooz/es 2 , men with long 
flowing tunics. As Homer has nowhere else used the 
epithet, he gives us no direct aid in illustrating it. 
But it clearly has more or less of disparaging effect, 
since such an habiliment is ill-suited for military pur- 
poses. And it is in direct contrast with the epithet 
aiiLTpoxiTO)V€s of the valiant Lukioi or Lycians, whose 
short and spare tunic required no cincture to con- 
fine it. 

These Ionians were, as it would seem, the ruling 
class of the Athenians, the 'Aflr/ixuW TrpoAeXey/xeW 3 ; 
or, it may be, their picked men. The praise awarded 
to Menestheus in the Catalogue, even if the passage be 
genuine, is only that of being good, to use a modern 
phrase, at putting his men into line 4 . The Athenian 
soldiers, indeed, are declared in II. iv. 328 to be valiant, 
juriorwpes clvttjs j but the character of the commander is 
less than negative. Though of kingly parentage, he 
nowhere appears among the governing spirits of the 
army, nor is he called one of the kings, although his 
father Peteos had enjoyed the title 5 ; and on the only 
occasion when we find him amid the clash of arms, 
namely, when the brave Lycians are threatening the 

1 II. ii. 577, 542. 2 II. xiii. 685. 3 II. xiii. 689. 

* II. ii. 554. ; * II. iv. 33.8. 

G 



82 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

part of the rampart committed to his charge, he shud- 
ders, and looks about him for aid 1 . The inferiority 
extends to the other Athenian chiefs, Pheidas, Stichios, 
Bias, and Iasos 2 ; of whom all are undistinguished, and 
two, Stichios and Iasos, are c food for powder, 5 slain by 
Hector and ./Eneas respectively. Here then there 
seems to have been bravery without qualities for com- 
mand ; and all this tends to exhibit the Athenians as in 
a marked degree Pelasgian at this epoch, stout but 
passive, without any of the ardour or the kikvs 3 of the 
Hellenic character. 

Something will hereafter be added to this evidence 
from an examination of the etymology of names in 
Homer. 

The close relation between Athene and Athens, 
however, is a sign that seems to tell in the opposite 
direction. But upon examining into it, we perceive that 
it is a local and not a personal relation. Ever active in 
the protection or guidance of Achilles, Agamemnon, 
Diomed, Odysseus, Athene says and does nothing what- 
ever in the War for any Athenian. Yet Athens has 
the epithet c sacred 4 / the unfailing mark in Homer of 
special relation to some deity ; and, as far as Athene 
has any favourite place of earthly residence or resort, it 
appears to be Athens, to which, seemingly as matter of 
course, she repairs from Scherie 5 , in the Odyssey. There 
is something remarkable, and not easy to explain, in 
this combination of strong local connection with a total 
absence of personal care and patronage. 

It is to be borne in mind that Athene appears to 

1 II. xii. 331. 2 II. xiii. 691 ; xviii. 329, 332. 

3 Od. xi. 392. * Od. xi. 332. 5 Od. vii. 30. 



Ill 



,] THE PELASGOI. 8$ 



have been a deity of universal worship 1 . She was 
regularly adored by the Trojans 2 , whom she laboured 
to ruin. 

On both the occasions when Athens is placed in 
direct connection with the goddess, the name of Erech- 
theus is introduced: in the Catalogue he is stated to 
have been nursed by Athene, and he was the child 
of Aroura 3 . She (probably Athene) set him in Athens, 
in her (or his) rich or well-endowed temple (e<3 h-l 

TtLOVl VT}(2>). 

It is impossible wholly to shake off the apprehension 
of forgery in dealing with this passage, which falls short 
in the grammatical clearness usually so notable in 
Homer. On the other hand, the objections which have 
been taken to it seem insufficient to condemn it ; to 
condemn at any rate the part of it I have cited, which 
remarkably corresponds with Od. v. 81 : there she enters 
the well-built house (ttvklvov bonov) of Erechtheus. 

Erechtheus appears in the Catalogue to be described 
as an autochthon ; and therefore probably as Pelasgian. 
The wealthy temple may perhaps mean a temple with 
a rejueuo? or glebe for a priest, which we shall find to 
be a sign, not of Hellenic, but of Pelasgian nation- 
ality. On the whole, we cannot ignore the existence of 
Pelasgian signs, while we cannot find in the text of 
Homer any full explanation of the fact that Athene is 
the eponymist of Athens. 

The type of Athene, however, is far too high to allow 
us to view her as a deity merely national. She is not 
circumscribed by any limits either of blood or place. 
This does not exclude specialties of attachment ; but 

1 Infra, Ch. VIU. 2 II. vi. 300. 3 II. ii. 547~549. 

G % 



84 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

her special attachment to the Greeks is one apparently 
having reference to great qualities of mind and cha- 
racter. The Pelasgianism of the Trojans does not, 
before the great quarrel, cut them off from her. She 
singularly loved Phereclos, who built the ships of 
Paris 1 ; and she aided the Trojans in erecting the 
rampart which sheltered Heracles from the pursuing 
monster 2 . 

There is, however, very powerful evidence outside 
the text of Homer to show the strongly Pelasgian 
character of Attica in early times. Her subsequent 
greatness was evidently connected with a remarkable 
mixture of blood, arising from her having been, during 
long periods, a place of refuge for fugitives, and for 
the worsted party expelled from other portions of 
Greece. 

Thucydides 3 states that, from early times, Attica was 
inhabited by one and the same race, because the poverty 
of the soil offered no temptations to an invader. Hence 
it is, without doubt, that we find the Athenians of 
history ever claiming the character of autochthons. 
But this is in effect to call them Pelasgians. 

Herodotus 4 declares the Athenians to have been 
Ionian, and the lonians to be Pelasgian. Having 
been Pelasgians, he says, the Attican people became 
Hellenic, apparently by the reception of immigrants, 
and by a gradual amalgamation. Evidently, according 
to this historian, the change did not take place by an 
arrival of lonians, for he declares that which Homer 
only suggests, that the lonians were Pelasgian. 

Some conflict, however, there was, apparently, be- 

1 II, v. 59. 2 II. xx. 146. 3 i. 2. i i. 56. 



III.] THE PELASGOI. 85 

tween the urban and the rural population. The Pe- 
lasgians complained, said Hecatseus 1 , that the Athenians 
drove them from the soil, which they had improved in 
such a degree as to excite envy. The Athenians alleged 
that their children, when they went forth to draw 
water, were insulted by the Pelasgians. The Dorian 
Tau, Herodotus 2 adds, was the Ionian Sigma. 

Thucydides 3 says the Athenians were the first among 
the Greeks to lay aside the custom of bearing arms, 
and to cultivate ease and luxury. We may naturally 
connect this fact with the undisturbed condition and 
pacific habits of the people : and perhaps it is partially 
indicated by the word eAK€X""coz;e?, c tunic-trailers/ 
already cited. 

The Hesiodic tradition of Hellen and his sons does 
not mention Ion. It is remarkable that Euripides does 
not represent Ion as Hellenic, but as the adopted son 
of Xouthos, the real son of Creusa, an Erechtheid ; in 
entire conformity with what, as I conceive, the text of 
Homer suggests. 

Peisistratos and his family claimed a Neleid, that is, 
a non-Pelasgian descent ; recognising as it were the 
difference of the ruling blood. 

According to Herodotus 4 , there remained in the 
Athens of history a portion of the wall called Pelasgic ; 
and the primitive Athenians were called Pelasgoi Cra* 
naoi, and were reputed to be autochthonous. 

Eleusis, in Attica, was the chief seat of the worship 
of Demeter — a deity, as we shall find, of eminently 
Pelasgian character and associations. 

Strabo declares that ancient Attica was las, with an 

1 As quoted in Herod, vi. 137, 138. 2 i. 139. 

3 i. 6. * i. 56 ; iii. 44 ; v. 64. 



86 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Ionian people, who supplied Asia Minor with the colo- 
nists of the Ionian migration 1 . 

The careful researches of Dr. Halm in Albania have 
accumulated much evidence of the Pelasgian character 
of the population. It includes remarkable coincidences 
with the institutions of Attica : for example, the four- 
fold division of the tribes 2 . 

To us the origin of the Ionian name remains in 
great obscurity. It is probably related to the Pelasgian 
stock. It certainly appears not to be Hellenic. 

3. In the Thessaly of the Greek Catalogue, not only 
does the paucity of tribal names leave us to suppose 
that the population of the districts generally had not 
yet distinctly emerged from what may be called Pelas- 
gianism, and not only is this supposition confirmed by 
the name of Pelasgic Argos, but there are other con- 
firmatory signs. 

One of them is the worship of the River Spercheios 3 ; 
which, though offered by Achilles for a special purpose, 
was also practised by Peleus, and is probably due to 
a strong local tradition of a Pelasgian character. His 
Te/xei'oy, or glebe, also connects him with the Pelas- 
gians 4 . 

Another sign is the re/jievos or sacred glebe of De- 
meter at Purasos 5 . Possibly the name may be related 
to 7rt;po9, wheat. Apart from this, the associations of 
Demeter in Homer are never Hellenic 6 . The appear- 
ance of a TCfievos in this case is also a Pelasgian sign. 

1 Bk. viii. p. 333- , 

2 Hahn, ' Albanesische Studien,' Abschn. ii. pp. 43-46, and 
note 19, p. 130. 

3 II. xxiii. 144. * See infra, Ch. VII. ; also p. 106. 
5 II. ii. 696. 6 See infra, Ch. VIII. 



III.] THE PELASGOI. 8j 

The historical growth of the Graian 1 (Greek) name 
out of the Greek settlements in Italy connects it with 
communities highly Pelasgian. In Homer we find that 
name only in Boiotia, a land of rich cultivation, like the 
Italian colonies. But Aristotle 2 places the Graicoi in 
the ancient Hellas, a portion of Thessaly, about Dodona 
and the Acheloos, which, he says, was inhabited by 
them and by the Selloi. Thus the Graian name serves 
further to associate Thessaly with the Pelasgoi. 

4. The name Iasos has an early and important place 
in the Homeric tradition. 

(a) The phrase c Iason Argos,' which means Western 
Peloponnesos 3 , appears to indicate a dynasty, or. domi- 
nion, of an Iasos in that country. 

(b) Demeter (in Crete, according to Hesiod) gives 
way to her passion for Iasion 4 , a son or descendant of 
Iasos, in a tilled field. 

(c) Demetor Iasides, a son, or rather a descendant, of 
Iasos, is represented by the pseud- Odysseus as reigning 
in Cyprus 5 at the period of his return to Ithaca, and 
as being in xenial relations with Egypt, the people of 
which, he says, made a present of him to Demetor. 
This clearly shows that there had been an Iasid domi- 
nion in Cyprus. 

id) Amphion and Zethos,who first founded and walled 
in the city of Thebes, were Iasids 6 : Amphion at one 
time (-H-ore) reigned in Minyan Orchomenos. 

(e) Iasos 7 , son of Sphelos and grandson of Boukolos, 

1 The name Graicos, according to K.O.Miiller, came back into 
use with the Alexandrian poets, through the old common tongue 
of Macedonia. M tiller's Orchomenos, p. 119. 

2 Meteorol. i. 14. 3 See above, Ch. II. p. 48. * Od. v. 125. 
5 Od. xvii. 442. 6 Qdi xi. 262, 283. 7 II. xv. 337- 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 



was one of the Athenian commanders, and fell by the 
hand of iEneas; this too without any commemora- 
tion : from both which circumstances we perceive that 
he was in no great esteem, and was most probably not 
of Hellenic, but. of Pelasgian blood. 

The attachment of Demeter to Crete was plainly 
connected with the Pelasgian period. The secondary 
place given to Iasos in the war, and the etymology 
of the names of his ancestry, seem to establish his Pe- 
lasgian extraction. If Amphion and Zethos were, as 
it appears probable, displaced from Bceotia by Kadmos 
and the Phoenicians, they were probably of a Pelasgian 
family: and indeed it would be very difficult to give 
evidence of any Hellenic race or family at their epoch, 
which is between four and five generations before the 
Troica. Lastly, Cyprus, distant as it was from 
Greece, was evidently in some position of qualified 
subordination to its ruling house , because, when the 
expedition to Troy was meditated, Kinures 1 , its ruler, 
sent a beautiful gift to Agamemnon, probably more as 
an apology for non-appearance, than as a disinterested 
token of good-will. 

All the several indications then converge upon this 
point, that the name of Iasos appears to bear no Hel- 
lenic character. It has certain points of contact at 
least with some of the races that dwelt in Egypt ; and 
likewise with Phoenicia through the city of Thebes, 
and through the indubitable presence of a Phoenician 
influence in Cyprus. Anterior to, and apparently reach- 
ing beyond the Hellenic name, its most marked asso- 
ciations appear to be Pelasgian. 



II. xi. 19-23. 



III.] THE PELASGOI. 89 

5. There are abundant marks of a Pelasgian character 
in the population of Crete. 

We know that the ruling family in Crete was Phoe- 
nician; but the wealth of the hundred-citied island 1 
was just what might be expected to arise from the early 
combination of Phoenician enterprise with Pelasgian 
industry. 

There were many races in Crete, and there was a 
mixture of tongue 2 . This appears to indicate the pre- 
sence of the Phoenician element in considerable force 
with its Semitic form of speech, as we have no reason 
to suppose, among the races actually named, any radical 
difference of language. In this passage the speaker 
is addressing Penelope, and it is in accordance with 
the uniform usage of the Poems, that he should mention 
only races which had been domesticated in Greece. 

Those races are, 1. Achaioi, 2. Eteocretes, 3. Ku- 
dones, 4. Dorieis, 5. Pelasgoi. Of these, the first 
and fourth may at once be classed as Hellenic. With 
respect to the Eteocretes, we may most naturally sup- 
pose them to have been part of the Pelasgian family, 
whose date of arrival was more remote, in relation to 
whom all the other races had thus been strangers, and 
to whom therefore is given a name that is the equi- 
valent of autochthons. The Kudones appear to be of 
similar origin. They lived on a Cretan river Iarda- 
nos 3 . This was the name of the river in Peloponnesos, 
on the banks of which the Pulians fought the Arca- 
dians. The battle 4 , as being one between Achaians 
and Pelasgians, was probably on Arcadian ground ; and 



1 II. ii. 649. In Od. xix. 174, ninety. 2 Od. xix. 175. 

3 Od. iii. 292. * II. vii. 134 ; xi. 735, 752 (?). 



90 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the name of rapid Keladon, given to the stream, also 
shows that it was on the high land. 

This Pelasgian population, with its less warlike, pos- 
sibly also less energetic, habits, appears to have sunk 
at a later period into servitude. According to Ephorus, 
as quoted by Athenseus 1 , there were in Crete festivals 
of the slave population, during which freemen were not 
permitted to come within the town walls, while the 
slaves were supreme, and were competent to flog the 
free. These festivals were held in Kudonia, the city 
of the Kudones. 

Fifthly, the name of Pelasgoi speaks for itself. 

6. The Leleges have a place on the Trojan side, ap- 
parently more important than that of the Kaukones. 
They appear, with the Kaukones and Pelasgoi 2 , as 
part of the force which was encamped upon the plain 
during the period when the Greeks were shut up within 
their entrenchment. Priam had for one of his wives 
Laothee, daughter of their king Altes 3 . He calls them 
lovers of battle. iEneas says 4 that Pallas c incited 
Achilles to make havock of Trojans and Leleges/ 
Homer can hardly mean, under the name of Leleges, 
to speak of the whole body of allies, which included 
both Pelasgians and his favourite Lycians. The name 
may be one covering some of the allied contingents; 
or it may signify the fourth and fifth divisions of the 
Trojan army, which appear in the Catalogue 5 without 
any national or tribal designation, immediately before 
the Pelasgoi and the rest of the allies. 

We have abundant instances in Homer of double 
names attaching to the same population. The people 

1 vi. p. 263. 2 II. x. 429. 3 II. xxi. 25. 

4 II. xx. 96. 5 II. ii. 828, 839. 



III.] THE PELASGOI. 9 1 

of Elis are Eleioi and Epeioi. The Dolopians are 
included under the Phthians; perhaps under Achaians 
and Hellenes 1 . Five races in particular are named as 
inhabiting Crete ; but all, possibly with others, are 
included in the Cretes 2 of the Second Iliad. The 
Ionian name, with that of the Kaukones, and of Le- 
leges, not to speak of the Temnikes, Aones, Huantes, 
Telebooi, of whom we do not hear in Homer, are most 
probably subdivisions of the great Pelasgian category. 
On the whole, it seems safest to adopt the conclusion 
of Bishop Thirlwall, that in all likelihood c the name 
Pelasgians was a general one, like that of Saxons, 
Franks, or Alemanni ; but that each of the Pelas- 
gian tribes had also one peculiar to itself 3 .' The evi- 
dence directly deducible from Homer tends to this 
conclusion ; and it is powerfully sustained, as we shall 
see, by more copious indirect testimony. 

The work of Dr. Hahn affords ample evidence of 
their occupation of Epiros, which was also recognised 
by the tradition of the ancients 4 . 

The belief that the Pelasgoi were the original inha- 
bitants of Greece, appears to be held undoubtingly by 
the modern Greeks, if we may trust the recent work 
of Petrides 5 upon the ancient history of his country. 

We are in no way obliged to suppose that tribes 
of so wide a diffusion came into Greece by a single 
route. The prevailing opinion 6 of the ancient writers 
was that their first seat was in the Peloponnesos. 

1 II. ii. 683 ; ix. 484 ; xvi. 186. 2 Od. xix. 175 ; II. ii. 645. 

3 History of Greece, vol. i. ch. ii. 

4 Strabo, bk. v. p. 221. Leake's Travels in Northern Greece, 
vol. iv. p. 174. 

5 Chap. i. pp. 2, 3 (Corfu, 1830). 6 Cramer's Greece, i. 17. 



92 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Homer gives abundant signs of them in Thessaly, but 
also in Crete and in Cyprus. It seems probable that 
they may have arrived both by the landward route of 
the Thracian coast, and by the stepping-stones, so to 
speak, which the southern islands afforded them. 

If there has been presented reasonable ground for the 
conclusion that the Pelasgians formed the base of the 
Greek nation, it is interesting to observe, by the light 
of history, how the most durable vitality of a people 
resides in the mass, while the energies of mere class, 
or of any branch socially separate from the trunk, are 
liable to exhaustion if they are not refreshed by popular 
contact ; as water taken from the sea grows foul, while 
the sea itself is ever fresh. The astute Aiolid, the 
high-souled and fiery Achaian, the Dorian with his iron 
will and unconquerable tenacity — each for a time enjoys 
ascendancy and disappears ; and the districts which suc- 
cessively attain to military pre-eminence in the later 
historic ages, are Boeotia, Macedonia, Arcadia, Epiros, 
none of which had been the early depositories of power- 
ful Hellenic influences. Lastly, Achaia emerged into a 
late celebrity. It is probable that we ought to consider 
this name, not so much in connection with the old and 
famous Achaian race, as with the party worsted in the 
great Dorian conquest : and if this be so, we shall be safe 
in concluding that, in all likelihood, the province had 
retained throughout a dominant Pelasgian character. 

The etymology of the Pelasgian name has been long 
and variously discussed without any conclusive issue. 
Some draw it from Peleg of the tenth chapter of Ge- 
nesis, a name said to mean c partition,' that is, of the 
earth: this opinion is questioned by Marsh 1 , and re- 

1 Horae Pelasg. c. i. sub fin. 



Ill 



] . THE PELASGOI. 93 



jected by Clinton 1 . Again, it has been derived from 
pelargoi, the Greek name for storks. This, according 
to some, because the Pelasgians were wanderers, and 
the stork is migratory. But the periodical movement 
of the stork seems to have no great correspondence 
with an irregularly roving habit in a people. Aristo- 
phanes 2 appears undoubtedly to make the name of 
storks a vehicle for a jest on the Pelasgian origin of 
the Athenians. Another plea seems to me more plau- 
sible. The stork is a social bird : in the East it settles 
on the roofs of houses ; it freely follows the ploughman 
along his furrow; and its habits thus, in both points, 
supply links of association with the first appearance of 
a people of husbandmen. The stork was one of the 
sacred birds of the Egyptians. 

Some have derived the name from pelagos, a word 
used in Greek for the sea. And this, either because 
the Pelasgians came by sea, or because they came from 
beyond sea. It seems doubtful, however, whether c sea' 
was the proper or only the second meaning of pelagos* 
We have the phrases, a\os ev ireKay eaat (Homer), ttou- 
tlov Ttihayos (Pindar), hk<s ireXayia (iEschyius), Tiikayos 
6aXa(T<ir]s (Apoilonius), all of which seem to show that 
pelagos, like aequor, may mean c a plain,' and may 
thus come to mean the expanse or level of the sea. 
Strabo tells us of a people called Pelagones in Mace- 
donia, and in Homer we find the names Pelagon and 
Pelegon. Hesychius renders the word irikayos as mean- 
ing greatness or depth, or the breadth of the sea. If 
the name of Pelasgoi be related to the word pelagos, 
it may be either because they were great and numerous, 
or because they were settlers upon plains. So Threx, 

1 Fasti Hellenicij i. 97. 2 Aves, i354«- 



94 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

its counterpart, akin to rprjxvsy meant the inhabitant 
of a rough or rocky place, a mountaineer 1 . 

Of the signs of a difference of race among the Greek 
population more or less in correspondence with a differ- 
ence of ranks, some have been exhibited in the exami- 
nation of the Achaian name, which appears properly to 
have designated an aristocracy formed from a conquering 
or dominant race, and placed amid a population of dis- 
tinct and less aspiring blood. 

Yet the difference must not be overstated. By com- 
mon consent we are dealing with different branches 
from the Aryan stem: and the distinction of Hellic 
and Pelasgic finds a correlative classification in the 
Italian races, where the Oscans hold the place of the 
Hellor. It is represented indeed in our country by 
the distinction among Normans, Scandinavians, Saxons 
(or the group of tribes ' collectively so called with no 
great propriety), and Celts ; though it may be more or 
less doubtful at which point of division we should draw 
the line among these several races. 

I shall endeavour to show that the Trojan War may 
in some sense be considesed as the conflict of Hellic 
with Pelasgic elements. But it is remarkable, i. that 
Homer nowhere represents the Trojans as speaking 
a tongue different from that of the Greeks ; o,. that the 
Trojan soldiery are nowhere represented as generally 
inferior to the Greek force ; it is the superiority of the 
chiefs which determines the fate of battle throughout 
the Poems. 

1 K. O. Miiller (Orchomenos, p. 119), assuming Pelasgos to be 
identical with Pelargos, derives the word from neXco, 'to be/ ' to 
be wont to be/ and so ' to frequent ' or ' inhabit/ together with 
"Apyos. 



Ill 



.J THE PELASGOT. 95 



With respect indeed to tongue, Homer tells us that 
the Trojan public called the son of Hector by the name 
of Astuanax, which is of Greek etymology; and we 
have in Troas 1 examples of that double nomenclature 
which is commonly interpreted as referring to the 
epochs of two different nationalities, the second of 
them corresponding, for all we know, with the con- 
temporary Greek tongue, though we are made aware 
that a variety of languages were spoken among the 
allies of Troy 2 . A long list of names, common to 
Greek and Trojan personages, may be drawn out from 
the Poems. 

But while we greatly lack positive information in the 
case of Troas, we possess it in the case of Italy. Care 
indeed must be taken to exclude from any comparison 
those words which were transported bodily out of the 
Greek into the Latin tongue after literary communion 
had begun, and according to the practice which Horace 3 
has described and recommended. 

Niebuhr 4 laid down these propositions, which appear 
to be reasonable. 

1. That the words truly common to the Greek and 
Latin languages are Pelasgian : 

2. That they chiefly relate to tillage and to peaceful 
life: 

3. That, accordingly, the Pelasgians were given to 
peace and to husbandry: 

4. Conversely, that the words in which the two 
tongues differ are due to another race, and indicate its 
pursuits. 

1 II. ii. 813 ; xx. 74. 2 II. iv. 438 ; x. 420. 

3 De Arte Poet. 53. 
* Hare and Thirlwall's Transl. vol, i.„p. 65, 



9 6 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



[chap. 



Speaking generally, those words of the Latin and 
Greek which most closely correspond, are 

i. First elements of the structure of a language, such 
as pronouns, prepositions, numerals. 

2. Words relating to the commonest objects of per- 
ception, and the primary wants of life, and forms of 
labour. 

Under the second head the following lists are pre- 
sented, by way not of exhaustion, but of example. 



I. OBJECTS OF INANIMATE NATURE. 



arip . . . 

aWrjp 

aXs, dakacrcra 



avTpov . 
dcrrrip . . 
avpa 

Atos (Zet>?) 
dpoaos . 
i'ap . . . 
iviavTOS, tjvls 
epa . 
ecrnepos 

fj\l09 
KoTkoV . 

\aas 

XcLKKOS "I 

Xeuo-crco 
Xvktj in XvKa, 



cdfias I 



aer 
aether 
salum 
antrum 
astrum 
aura 
dies 
ros 
ver 
annus 
terra 
vesper 
sol 

' coelum 
lapis 

lacus 

lux 
mensis 



vecpos nebula 

(vig) vtfpos . . . nix 

vv£ nox 

TrevKfj pix 

iroXos polus 

ttovtos pontus 

piyos frigus 

aeXrjvr) luna 

crKoVeAo? .... SCOpulus 

cnreos, anrjXacov . . spelunca 

vdcop sudor 

c , r fluvius 
L pluvms 

v\rj sylva 

(pvKos fucus 

(pvXXov . ' . . . folium 

Xapai humus 

X^Lpaiv hyems 

cop?) hora 



podop 



II. TREES, PLANTS, 
viola (prjyos . 

rosa 



fagus 



III.] 



THE PELASGOI. 



97 



III. OF ANIMATED NATURE. 



aXayrrr}^ .... vulpes 

dfivos agnus 

fiovs bos 

eyxekvs .... anguilla 

6r]p fera 

i7T7ro9 equus 

IxOvs piscis 

mnpos aper 

Kpios aries 



KVCOV, KVVOS 


. . cams 


\ea>v 


. leo 


\l/KOS . 


. . lupus 


ois .... 


. OV1S 


ovBap . 


. uber 


7T(o\oS . 


. pullus 


ravpos . . . . 


. taurus 


& 


. sus 


a>KV7TTepos . 


. accipit 



IV. OBJECTS CONNECTED WITH FOOD. 



apneXos .... pampinus 

yaXa, yakaKros "| , , 

' , Y . lac, lactis 

yAayos ... J 

Sals dapes 

iXaia olea 

eXaiov oleum 

KaXapos .... calamus 

kolvt} coena 

Kpeas caro 



pe\i 
prjhov . 
oivos 
(tItos 

(TVKOV . 

rpvyq . 
d-Tpvyeros 
d>6v . 



mel 

malum 

vinum 

cibus 

ficus 

fruges 

triticum 

ovum 



RELATED TO OUTDOOR LABOUR. 



aypos . 
aporpov 
apovpa . 



ager 

aratrum 

arvum 



{evyos \ 
£vyov f 
Kfjiros, crrjuos 
opxpros 



jugum 

sepes 
hortus 



VI. NAVIGATION. 



ayKvpa . 

iperpov 

KvfiepvrjTTjs 



ancora Xiprjv limen 

remus vavs navis 

gubernator novs pes 

H 



9 8 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



[chap. 



VII. DWELLINGS. 

aWakrj favilla Bvpai fores 

avXrj aula kXtjis clavis 

dofios domus Xe^os lectus 

edos sedes oIkos vicus 

OaXapos .... thalamus 



VIII. CLOTHING. 

£(t6t}s vestis x^ aLVa 



lsena 



IX. THE HUMAN BODY. 



yovv 

beUvvpi 

cXkos 

evTepov 

rjirap 



"} 



neap 

KecpaXr] 

Kopr) 

xa| . 

Xa7TTG) 



genu 

digitus 

ulcus 

venter 

jecur 

cor 

caput 
coma 
calx 
labrum 



p.rjp6s femur 

p.ve\6s medulla 

odovs dens 

6(tt€ov os (ossis) 

7raXdfiTj .... palma 

-rreta (comp.) 1 

)■ . pes, pedis 

7TOVS ... J 

wXevrj ulna 

a>pos armus 

&y\r . . ... . os (oris) 



X. THE FAMILY. 



yevos 


. . gens, genus 


<f)pr)TT)p 


eKvpos . 


. . . socer 


(ppyTpr) 


p.r)Tr)p . 


. . mater 


XVPV 


■jraTTjp . 


. . pater 


X^pCOO-TTj 


vlos . . 


. . nlius 





} ■ 



frater 
heres 



i\evdepos . 
TTaWaKis . 
pe(a) (/$e£to) 



liber 

pellex 

rex 



XI. SOCIETY. 

tcktcov (areyco) 



f tectum, 
Itego 
fur 



III.] 



THE PELASGOI. 



99 



XII. GENERAL IDEAS. 



aioov . . 


. . sevum 


akyos . 


. . algor 


avefjios . 


. . animus 


avdr] 


. . audio 


(3ios . . 


. . vita 


^ LOT OS . 


. . victus 


yevco, yevcra> 


. . gustus 


doais . 


. . dos 


doopov . 


. . donum 


e'ido) 


. video 


Oeos . . . 


. deus 


0Lyyaua> . 


. tango 


dvpOS . 


. fumus 


IS ... . 


. vis 


Kviaarj 


. nidor 



ArjTco J 


. . letum 


fievos . 


. . mens 


ixopos . . 


. . mors 


fxopcpt . . 


. . forma 


V€V(0 


. . numen 


POOS 


. nosco 


68pr) 


. odor 


obvvq . 


. odium 


ovopa . 


. nomen 


pcoprj . . . 


. Roma, robur 


VTTVOS . 


. somnus 


(pans, cparov . 


. fatum 


cpvp-q . . . 


. fama 


<pvyr], <pv£a 


. fuga 



XIII. ADJECTIVES OF COMMON USE. 



ayKos . 


. . uncus 


p.eyas . . 


. . magnus 


uXkos . 


. alius 


peioov . 


. . minor 


ftpabvs, /3ap5i 


'•$■ . tardus 


veos . . 


. . novus 


@pa X vs . 


. . brevis 


oXos 


. . solus 


yevvalos . 


. . gnavus 


op 66s . 


. . ordo 


ypavs . 


. . gravis 


„ 


f parvus 
' \ paucus 


yvpos . 


. curvus 


ivavpos 


8e£ios . 


. . dexter 


7ra^vs . 


. pinguis 


ipvdpos 


. ruber, rufus 


7TlKp6s . 


. acris 


fjdvs 


. suavis 


nXarvs 


. latus 


Kvpros . 


. curvus 


7r\eos . 


. plenus 


Xelos . 


. lsevis 


nvppos 


. furvus 


Xeirros \ 
Xiyvs I 


j lentus 

* L levis 


reprjv . 


. tener 


VTTTIOS . . . 


. supinus 


pdaacov 


. major 


X<*os . . . 


. cavus 



For such a people as we have supposed the Pelasgians 
h % 



IOO 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



[chap. 



to be, here is no inconsiderable equipment of words. 
But there are exceptions. 

i. In regard to religion, the stock is scanty. We have 
deus related to 6t6s, numen to z>e&o 5 rex to p{(a) y in 
virtue probably of the sacrificial office of a primitive 
king: and we may add, as correlatives, Aot/3?j to libo, 
and apaonaij aprjTrjp to ara, or are, orator. But this is 
little: and there is a great lack of correspondence in 
the principal words, such as, on the Greek side, tepdy, 
aytos, Ova), ficupLos, vrjos, ayaXpLa, ripievos, ev^opLciL, and on 
the other, sacer, sanctus, pius, templum, preces, 
vates, macto, mola. In one case, or in both, there 
must have been a great displacement of the Pelasgic 
vocabulary. And as the Roman religion was far more 
Pelasgian than the Greek, it is probable that this dis- 
placement, if it occurred in one only of the two penin- 
sulas, occurred in Greece. 

2. The words relating to war are almost without ex- 
ception irreducible to agreement. 





r CUSpis 


kXhtlcii 


. castra 


al X M . . • 


.< mucro 


Kvrjpls . . . 


. ocrea 




L acies 


Kokeos . 


. vagina 


"ApTjS . . . 


. Mars 


kvkXos 


. rota 


appa, dicppos . 


J currus 
" I rheda 


Kvuerj . 


. galea 
r pugna 
* 1 proelium 




j scutum 
I clypeus 


paxq, vo-pivr) 


acnris, <to.kos . 


6'i<TTOS, 16s 


. sagitta 


ffeXos . . . 


. telum 


noXepos 


. bellum 


fitos, TO^OV 


. arcus 


pvpos . 


. . temo 


dopv, eyxps . 
6(opr)£ . . 


. hasta 
. lorica 


o-akiriylz . 


j tuba 
* I classicum 


kKktit] x 


. tabernaculum 


(pdcryavov, £/<; 


bos ensis. 



1 Caesar, De Bell. Civil, b. iii. c. 96. 



Til 



,] THE PELASGOI. 1C1 



Here the most striking correspondence is that of 
Ares with Mars, both used to signify war itself, as well 
as to mean the god of war. But Ares, though he is not 
easy to trace, appears to be a deity whose origin would 
assign him exclusively neither to the Pelasgian nor to 
the Hellenic family 1 . The relationship of (3e\os to 
telum appears clear enough. Except a rather faint 
similarity of 7xoAejuo9 to bellum, and of 0upr)£ to lorica, 
there is no apparent connection between any other 
words in the list. 

It is also worth observing that, while the Greeks de- 
rive the important ethical words /3eArepo9, better, from 
/3eAo?, and apto-ros, best, from ap-qsy the Latins are con- 
tent with optimus, obtained from a common root with 
opes, wealth; possibly, however, as we, not much to 
our honour, say that one man is worth more than 
another. 

With respect to the terms belonging to navigation, 
it is remarkable how they bear upon rowing, its rudest 
form, and do not include the names for mast, yard, or sail. 

Again, the use of metals is slight in the earliest stage 
of society. Even with the Greeks of Homer only one, 
XaAKo's, or copper, was at all common; and we may 
observe a great want of correspondence between the 
Greek and the Roman names for these invaluable com- 
modities. 

i. xP var ° s ' • • aurum 4. aldrjpos .... ferrum 

2. apyvpos . • • argentum 5. Kaaairepos . . . stannum 

3. x Q )Vxos- . . . ses 6. fxoXi&os, noXvfidos . plumbus. 

The Greek bovXos, again, is in marked contrast with 
1 See infra, Chap. VIII. 



102 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the Latin ser vus. We might on the whole plausibly sup- 
pose that slavery was not a Pelasgian institution at the 
time when the Greek and Italian branches of the race 
parted company. War and maritime adventure were the 
chief feeders of that institution; and the Pelasgians, 
as we see, were not of themselves addicted to either, 
however good the materials they afforded for a soldiery. 

Nearly all those Greek words which are in close 
affinity with the Latin are found in Homer. 

It seems then, in sum, that the Pelasgian tongue 
supplied both peninsulas with most of the words relating 
to the primary experience, and to the elementary wants 
and productions, of life; but not with those of a more 
arduous range, such as war, art, policy, and song. And 
the religious vocabulary of the Greeks was probably 
supplied from Hellenic sources. 

There is also a very traceable distinction in the 
names of persons throughout the Iliad. I am far from 
contending, that we are to suppose them to be in general 
authentic. But the elements, out of which Homer has 
constructed them, will indicate a marked difference 
cf character and pursuits. Homer gives his Phaiakes 
names generally connected with nautical habits, in ac- 
cordance with his picture of the people. It is probable 
that he proceeds on a similar principle in other cases. 
The evidence which names, analysed according to this 
hypothesis, will supply, tends to show the strength of 
the Pelasgian element — i. among the Trojans; 2. in 
the inferior class of Greeks; 3. particularly in certain 
portions of Greece ; while 4. the Lycian names, though 
on the Trojan side, appear to fall into an opposite 
class. 

The test of a Pelasgian leaning in the names I 



III.] THE PELASGOI. T03 

suppose to be their connection with rural, pacific, or 
industrious habits, and the like. The opposite class 
express ideas belonging to glory, policy, mental powers, 
martial vigour and operations. 

We must not apply the rule too closely to slaves: 
such as Eumaios, Eurucleia, Eurumedousa, Alkippe ; for 
high-born slaves were frequently obtained by policy 
and by the chances of war 1 . 

It is also to be observed that the names etymologi- 
cally related to the horse are almost exclusively on the 
Trojan side. Such are Hippasos, Hippothoos,, Hippo- 
lochos (Lycian), Hippodamas, Hippodamos, Hippocoon, 
Hippomachos, Hippotion, Melanippos, Euippos, Eche- 
polos. Hippodamos, too, will be remembered as one of 
the stock or staple epithets of Hector. On the other 
side I have only noticed Hipponoos 2 . In Homer, the 
horse-feeding country is the plain country 3 . And 
Thessaly had already begun to obtain the pre-emi- 
nence in its breed of horses, which distinguished it in 
the historic period; for the two best teams c by far 4 ,' 
in the Greek army, were Thessalian. This may per- 
haps be the link of association between the horse and 
our Pelasgian lowlanders. 

Again, the names connected with gates are generally 
of the Trojan party. There are Pulaios, Pulon, Pu- 
lartes, and Pulaimenes. Of the Greeks we have Euru- 
pulos. But all these appear to be the names of leaders 
or prominent personages. 

Among Attic names we find Pheidas, Stichios, Sphe- 
los, Boucolos. These names belong to prominent per- 
sonages. But an etymology relating to such ideas as 

1 Od. xv. 413. 2 II. xi. 303. 

3 Od. iii. 263. * II. ik763j 77°. 



104 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

parsimony and tillage is such as we do not find among 
the Hellenic races in a corresponding rank. 

Among Trojans slain, without. much note of distinc- 
tion, we find Amphiteros, Echios, Puris, Polumelos, 
Argeas (compare Argeioi), Dresos, Opheltios, Bouco- 
lion, Melanthios (compare Melanthios and Melantho of 
the Odyssey, both servants). Many of the names ac- 
companying these are of doubtful etymology : compara- 
tively few relate to high qualities or pursuits. 

In the Eleventh Iliad, Hector slays in a mass nine 
persons 1 , who are called ^ye/xoVe?, or leaders, as opposed 
to the ir\r]dvs or common soldiery. But as none of these 
are anywhere else even mentioned, and as Homer never 
allows Greeks really distinguished to fall wholesale by 
the Trojan sword or spear, we cannot render this as 
meaning more than that they were officers. Accord- 
ingly we find a mixture of names ; Aisumnos, Autonoos, 
Agelaos, are of the Hellenic class: Dolops, Opites, 
Opheltios, Oros, and perhaps Hipponoos, of the Pelasgic. 
Dolops, however, is the son of Clutos, a name belonging 
to another order. 

When we turn to the Lycians, whose affinities are 
plainly not Pelasgian 2 , we find that Odysseus slays in 
succession Koiranos, Alastor, Chromios, Alcandros, Ha- 
lios, Noemon, Prutanis. These names are all probably 
of the Hellenic class ; for Halios means maritime, 
and we find no presumably Pelasgian names which 
point to maritime pursuits (Astualos 3 is simply local) ; 
while Chromios seems to mean bright-coloured (xpw/xa), 
i. e. beautiful. All the others are clearly of a patrician 
cast. 

We find in the Iliad ten legitimate sons of Antenor, 

1 II. xi. 304. 2 II. v. 677. 3 II. vi. 29. 



Ill 



,] THE PELASGOI. 105 



and one bastard. Eight of the ten have names palpably 
of the Hellenic order: Agenor, Acamas, Archilochos, 
Demoleon, Echeclos, Iphidamas, Laodamas, Laodocos. 
Nor can the other two, Coon and Helicaon, be referred 
to the Pelasgian class. The bastard is Pedaios, II. v. 
70 : he was brought up on the same footing as the rest. 
It will be remembered that Homer expressly declares 
the Myrmidons to be Hellenic and Achaian. Now 
we have named among them Patroclos, Menoitios, 
Menesthios, Eudoros, Peisandros 3 Maimalos (/xcujudco), 
Alkimedon, Laerkes, Automedon. Every one of these 
names is of what I have described as the Hellenic 
character. 

Upon the whole, and without any allegation of a 
rigid uniformity, indeed with a confessed inability to 
assign an etymology for many of the Homeric names, 
still it may be held that, where we have already on 
other grounds found reason to presume Pelasgian blood, 
there the names are frequently related to peace, in- 
dustry, wealth, and are not of a soaring character : 
whereas in cases of high station generally, and of clear 
Hellenic blood, they refer to valour, fame, command, 
mental power, and the like. 

The chief of all the Homeric signs that Greece had 
been occupied, before the Achaian period, by a non- 
Hellenic race, is to be found in the sphere of religion. 
I will not anticipate what there will be an opportunity 
of unfolding in detail hereafter 1 . It may suffice for the 
present to observe, that while the genius of the Olym- 
pian system of Homer is intensely human or anthropo- 
morphic, we can trace, especially outside of that system, 



1 Infra, Chap. VII. 



106 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

but partially as adopted into it, the remains of a reli- 
gion of a different order, based, principally at the least, 
upon the worship of Nature-Powers, that is to say, of 
the powers discerned in material and sensible nature. 

I now turn to glance at some of the extra-Homeric 
evidence of the wide extension of the Pelasgoi at an 
early period 1 . 

Besides associating Dodona both with Hellic and 
Pelasgic races, Hesiod may be interpreted as personi- 
fying Pelasgos : a testimony legendary in itself, but 
betokening the importance of the race 2 . 

Asios, a very ancient poet, as quoted by Pausanias, 
represents Pelasgos to have been the child of Earth, 
born upon the mountains that he might be the father 
of men 3 . iEschylus, in the Supplices 4 , makes him the 
son of the earth-born Palaichthon- from him the Pe- 
lasgians take their name: his dominion reaches from 
the Strumon northwards to the Peloponnesos. In the 
reign of this Pelasgos, Danaos comes to Greece. Of 
Pelasgos, Argos in the historic period professed to show 
the tomb. Arcadia held the tradition that he taught 
the use of dwellings and clothes, and to eat chestnuts 
instead of roots, grass, and leaves 5 . Thessaly had its 
separate tradition of him. 

According to Herodotus, Greece was anciently called 
Pelasgia : the Peloponnesian women under Danaos 
were Pelasgiotides : the Arcadians and people of Aigia- 
leia (afterwards Achaia) were Pelasgian: the case of 
Attica has already been mentioned : recollections of 
the Pelasgian worship were preserved in his day at 

1 See Bishop Marsh, Horse Pelasgicae, Cambridge, 1815. 

2 Hes. Fragm. x. 2. 3 Paus. viii. 1. 2. i v. 247. 
5 Paus. viii. 2. 2. 



Ill 



,] THE PELASGOI. 107 



Dodona: the Pelasgian race subsisted in Samothrace 
and Lemnos, and in Plakie and Skulake, settlements 
on the Hellespont 1 . He writes 2 that they use a foreign 
tongue; and at this we need not wonder, when they 
and the Pelasgians of the Greek peninsula had moved 
for so many generations on separate and diverging 
lines. 

Thucydides places the spot, or building, called Pelas- 
gicon, under the Acropolis at Athens; and states that 
the Pelasgian race was the race principally diffused over 
Greece in early times. He also calls the Pelasgians 
of his own day barbaroi; the name then applied by 
Greeks to everything not Greek. He adds that they 
were of the same family, the Tursenoi, who anciently 
occupied Athens 3 . 

Theocritus, early in the third century before Christ, 
describes the Pelasgians as the principal race in Greece 
before the Troi'ca; and Apollonius, two generations 
later, calls Thessaly their country. The Scholiast on 
this passage quotes Sophocles in the Inachos as declaring 
that Pelasgoi and Argeioi were the same: which, 
for those within the limits of Greece, is very nearly 
the conclusion suggested by the text of Homer as a 
whole 4 . 

Strabo states that the Pelasgoi were the earliest lords 
of Greece ; that the oracle of Dodona was a Pelasgian 
foundation; that Thessaly was called Pelasgic Argos; 
that, according to Ephorus, Pelasgia was a name of 
the Peloponnesos j and he gives us the fragment of 

1 Herod, i. 146 ; ii. 52, 56, 171 ; vii. 94. 

2 Herod, i. 57. 3 Thucyd. i. 3 ; v. 109. 

4 Theocr. Idyll, xv. 136-140; Apoll. Argonaut, i. 580; and 
Schol. Paris. 



108 JU VENT US MUNDI. 

Euripides, which reports that Danaos changed the name 
of its inhabitants from Pelasgiotai to Danaoi 1 . 

Dionysius looks upon Peloponnesos as the first seat 
of the race, and affirms that it was Hellenic : meaning, 
probably, that it entered into the composition of the 
Hellenic body 2 . 

Niebuhr 3 shows the wide range of Pelasgian occu- 
pancy in Italy: Cramer, in Greece and Asia Minor 4 . 

1 Strabo, vii. p. 327 ; v. p. 221. 2 Dion. Halic. i. 17. 

3 Hist. chap. iii. 4 Geogr. of Ancient Greece, vol. i. p. 15. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Hellas. 

The name which the Greeks have given their 
country for a period approaching three thousand years, 
and which foreign countries have incorrectly rendered 
by the term Greece, is Hellas. It has a secondary 
place in Homer ; and yet there are indications of its 
coming greatness. With Hellas as a territorial name, 
we meet not unfrequently in Homer • but we likewise 
have the derivatives of that word, — 
i. Hellenes, II. ii. 684. 

2. Panhellenes, II. ii. 530. 

3. Kephallenes, II. ii. 631 et alibi. 

And we have also the primitive tribal name from 
which it is itself derived, Helloi, or Selloi, II. xvi. 234. 

We first make acquaintance with the Hellas of 
Homer in the Catalogue. He takes unusual pains 
to fix in his picture, as it were with fast colours, 
the contingent of Achilles. In four lines he represents 
them, — 

1. As occupying a part of Pelasgic Argos or 
Thessaly. 



110 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

2. As occupying Alos, Alope, Trechin, with Phthie 
and Hellas. The three places named are probably the 
chief or only towns \ 

3. As bearing the designations (1) of Myrmidons, 
(2) of Hellenes, (3) of Achaioi. 

In Homer, great part of Greece is wholly without 
territorial names ; and, when such names appear, we 
must not at once assume that they are employed with 
the same precision as in later times, when they came 
to signify districts of fixed and known delimitation. 

Hellas is named ten times in the Poems ; four times 
together with Argos, in the set phrase KaO' c EAAa8a kcu, 
liicrov "Apyos 2 , c throughout Hellas and mid-Argos : J 
four times obviously in the same sense as in II. ii. 
633; and three of the four times in immediate con- 
nection with Phthie, and with reference to territory 
under the dominion of Peleus 3 . 

But, in II. ix. 447, Phoenix says that he left Hellas 
to enter the dominions of Peleus, and in II. v. 478, that 
he left Hellas, and entered Phthie. Yet the Catalogue, 
and three other passages, show us, that a part at least 
of the dominions of Peleus was called Hellas ; and the 
Myrmidons were also called Hellenes, and are indeed 
the only people to whom that designation is expressly 
given. 

Now, when Phoenix thus took refuge, he was flying 
from his father Amuntor, who dwelt in Eleon 4 ; and 
this Eleon, as we find from the Catalogue, was in the 
land of the Boiotoi 5 . Consequently the name Hellas, 

1 See the Catalogue, II. ii. 603 seqq., 615 seqq. 

2 Od. i. 344; iv. 724, 816 ; xv. 80. 

3 II. ii. 683 ; ix. 395 ; xvi. 595 : Od. xi. 494. 

4 II. x. 367. 5 II. ii. 500. 



IV. J HELLAS. Ill 

besides designating at least a part of the kingdom of 
Peleus, embraced the country as far as to include 
Bceotia. 

Accordingly, it must have included the country of 
the Locroi, afterwards called Locris. So that, when 
Homer says the Oilean Ajax excelled, in the art of 
casting the spear, c the Panhellenes, 3 that is, all the 
Hellenes, c and the Achaians/ it is pretty plain that 
the name Hellenes in his view embraced the Lo- 
croi. 

We find, then, that the two passages, where Hellas 
is named by Phoenix in contradistinction to Phthie, 
are in general harmony (according to the results of our 
previous inquiry 1 ) with those where it is mentioned 
with Argos ; and that, in both, it is, without any rigid 
definition of boundary, a general name for the parts of 
Greece north of the Peloponnesos. 

And the four passages, in which the name Hellas 
is applied to territory under the sway of Peleus, do 
not compel us to give a second sense to the term; 
for they do not imply that Peleus ruled all Hellas, 
but only that his dominions extended beyond the 
territory specially called Phthie, and included part 
of what had Hellas for its ruling appellation. 

Phthie itself is remarkable as the only territorial 
name, denoting a district of country without reference 
to a town, which we find in the Greece of Homer 
north of the Isthmus of Corinth. We may regard it 
as carved out of Hellas, and so distinguished from 
it when mentioned alone; yet included in it when 
Northern Greece is named as a whole. The phrase 
c Pelasgic Argos 5 is hardly an exception, since that 
1 Supra, Ch. II. 



112 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CH^-P. 

appears rather to be a description given by the Poet 
of the great Pelasgian Lowlands, than a recognized 
and current title. So ' the plain of York ' is a de- 
scriptive phrase, not an established territorial name. 

It is plain that Phthie was the principal part of the 
dominions of Peleus, since it is used for the whole 
of them 1 , like England for the United Kingdom. It 
was a rich and fertile country. 

Yet its inhabitants are never called Phthioi. This 
name is given to two other Thessalian contingents, the 
second under Podarkes, and the fourth under Medon 2 . 
And here we have a remarkable indication of the 
distinction between the Hellenic and the Pelasgian 
races. We cannot doubt that the kingdom of Peleus 
had been inhabited by Phthioi, since they had given 
it the name Phthie. We have no reason to suppose 
these Phthians were displaced by the Myrmidons, since 
we find Phthians and Myrmidons side by side in the 
same army. But the more distinguished title effaces 
the more obscure; and while the Phthian name con- 
tinues to attach to the population of other less Hellen- 
ized parts of Thessaly, in Phthie itself the people have 
in lieu of it the three designations of Myrmidon, 
Hellene, and Achaian; Achaian, as a great and lead- 
ing branch of the illustrious Achaian family ; Hellene, 
as inhabiting a country included under the overriding 
name of Hellas ; and Myrmidon, probably as a subsept 
of the Achaians. 

It is plain, that Homer has made use of special 
means to mark the Hellenic and Achaian character 
of the kingdom of Peleus, and to exclude it in a marked 

1 II. i. 155, 169 ; ix. 363 ; xix. 299. 

2 II. xiii. 685, 693 ; cf. II. ii. 704, 727. 



IV.] HELLAS. II3 

manner from the category of Pelasgian influences. 
This observation, however, opens up another subject, 
to which we may revert. 

The word Panhellenes, though only once used, in the 
description of the Oilean Ajax, is of great importance. 
c In spear-casting he excelled the Panhellenes and 
Achaians 1 / These two names cannot refer to the 
inhabitants of different territories. Even if they did, 
the former would include the inhabitants of all Hellas, 
that is, of all Northern and Middle Greece. But we 
know (1) that there were Achaians there ; (2) that 
these Achaians were also, in the case of the Myrmi- 
dons, called Hellenes. Homer may seem, then, to 
designate, though not as by absolute and well-under- 
stood synomyms, but rather with a certain vagueness, 
substantially the same persons, namely all the Greeks ; 
but to give them both their territorial name, and their 
blood-name. 

Though Thucydides 2 is right in saying Homer does 
not call the Greeks Hellenes, yet it thus appears not 
improbable that, once at least, he calls them Pan- 
hellenes. Yet the verse ought hardly to attract sus- 
picion on account of the word, since independently of 
it we have sufficient proof that the territorial name of 
Hellas might be applied without impropriety to 
describe the range at least of Northern and Middle 
Greece. Nor do I broadly deny that this may be the 
meaning of the word Panhellenes. If such be the true 
construction, then the use of Panhellenes and Achaians 
to signify all Greeks, may be compared with the use 
of c Hellas and the breadth of Argos' in the Odyssey 
to describe all Greece. It is also just possible that, as 

1 II. ii. 530. 2 i. 3- 

I 



114 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the Achaian name has a leaning to the dominant class 
or aristocracy, the Hellenic name may in this passage 
have a similar leaning, and may, like the other, be 
used to denote the community, as the part supposed 
more excellent often is used to denote the whole. 

There is another designation in Homer which seems 
probably, if not certainly, to be a derivative from the 
same stock — the name Kephallenes, a name still 
engraved on the island of Cefalonia. This word is 
used in the Iliad to describe the subjects of Odysseus. 
It however appears but twice. It might be expected to 
recur frequently in the Odyssey. But it is employed 
only five times, and never for the inhabitants of Ithaka, 
taken alone, who are always called either Ithakesioi, 
or Achaioi. In Od. xx. 210 it refers specially to 
those who inhabited the continental pasture lands of 
Odysseus. In Od. xxiv. 355, 3JJ, 428 it seems to be 
capable of no meaning except the subjects of Laertes 
and those of Odysseus generally, as in the Iliad. 
Generally, I mean, as opposed to any narrower territorial 
limitation; for I do not exclude the belief that the 
name of Kephallenes may imply the better blood of the 
community. It may moreover be conjectured that 
this was a word, like Hellenes, creeping into use, 
but not as yet fully established. 

It appears to be formed from the word Hellenes, 
with the prefix Kecf)-, meaning c head/ which appears in 
Ke^aAr?, in the Sanscrit kapala, the Latin caput, and 
the German kopf \ not to mention other words. 

Let us now ascend to the word from which Hellas 
itself is derived; since it obviously means, according 
to a regular Greek formation, the country which had 

1 Donaldson, New Cratylus, p. 291. 



IV.] HELLAS. 115 

been occupied by, and which had come to be named 
from, the Hello i. These Helloi appear to be the 
Selloi of II. xvi. 234. They seem also to be a people 
of the rudest habits, dwellers in the mountains ; having 
prophets or interpreters, it is said, not priests, of Zeus, 
and being especially devoted to him in that capacity. 
We have other vestiges of this race in Homer; in 
the name of a river Selleeis, which we find in or near 
Troas \ as well as (probably) at more than one point in 
Greece; and especially in the name Hellespontos, 
which in Homer means not the narrow strait merely, 
but the whole sea between Troas and Thessaly at the 
least, or the northern iEgean 2 . 

Independently of the grammatical connection be- 
tween Helloi, Hellas, and Hellene, there can be little 
doubt that in his solemn invocation, Achilles, himself 
described as a Hellene, means to invoke Zeus by the 
tie of race. This, then, is signified in the recital 
concerning the Selloi, or Helloi, the sigma and the 
aspirate here representing one another as in many 
other cases; for example, hex, hepta, hudor, hus, 
and sex, septem, sudor, sus. The one form reappears 
in Selleeis, and in the Proselenoi 3 of Arcadia; the 
other in Hellespont, and in the Hellopia of Hesiod. 

The Scholiast on the Birds of Aristophanes 4 informs 
us that braggarts were called Selloi ; and that the word 
ae\ki(ziv meant to vapour or brag. He derives this 
sense of the word from Sellos, the father of one 
^schines, satirised by the dramatist. Now it seems 
very little probable that the name of the obscure father 
of an obscure man should thus have given by metaphor 

1 II. ii. 839. 2 II. ix. 360. 

3 See supra, Chap. II. p. 80. 4 v. 824. 

I 2 



Il6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

a word to the Greek tongue; and again, that the 
explanation should have been handed down from the 
time of Aristophanes to that of the Scholiast. Such 
words as c hectoring 5 and c rhodomontading ' presuppose 
a great celebrity in the personage on whose name they 
are based, as without this they would not be intelligible. 
But if we refer this phrase to the ancient Selloi, the 
explanation is easy. In Greece, and especially in 
Attica, to be autochthonous or indigenous, and conse- 
quently to be of a very ancient race, was notoriously 
matter not only of credit but of vainglory, and thus to 
play the Sellos would be a natural and effective way of 
describing the manners of a vainglorious person. 

The great Greek chieftains of the war are supplied 
as follows : Achilles, from a district of which the 
whole military class is expressly described as Hellene 
and Achaian ; Idomeneus, from Phoenician ancestry ; 
Odysseus also, from a region in which the upper class 
is Achaian ; Agamemnon, Menelaos, Diomed, Nestor, 
from districts in which Pelasgianism is wholly sub- 
merged. The greater Ajax is the near kinsman of 
Achilles, and we must therefore suppose the Tela- 
monian race to be strongly marked with Hellenism. 

It may reasonably be asked, how it happens that if 
Southern Greece, meaning the Peloponnesos with the 
adjoining islands, thus abounds in Hellenic elements, 
we should be entirely without traces of the name of 
Hellas in that portion of the country. 

We find indeed its kindred there; the name Selleeis 
for a river, and Kephallenes for a people. But these 
are not very prominent. The proper answer seems to 
be that, as the name Hellas took a natural precedence 
over names of Pelasgian associations, so the Achaians 



IV.] HELLAS. 117 

were probably the flower and the ruling order of Hel- 
lenes. Consequently, their name, where they were 
largely spread, might tend to suppress that of Hellas • or 
to prevent its formation, by filling already the place it 
would occupy with the territorial name Achaiis. This 
Achaian name is here found prevailing in the domi- 
nions of Agamemnon, of Diomed, of Nestor, of Odys- 
seus : the same must be presumed of those of Menelaos. 
And at least much the larger part of the Peloponnesos 
seems to be included in the Achaic Argos, besides that 
the word Achaiis unquestionably includes the whole 
country from north to south. 

There may however be an inference drawn from the 
local concatenation of names. Beginning at or near 
Troas, and moving towards the west, we have S^lleeis, 
-Hellespont, Helloi, Hellenes, and (from Hesiod) Hel- 
lopia. Probably we have here an indication that the 
route of the Hellic tribes into Greece was by the Hel- 
lespont and the northern extremity of the country. 
They were not, like the Pelasgians, an essentially low- 
land people, as we perceive from the brief description 
in the Invocation of Achilles. The name Trechin, as 
one of the settlements in the kingdom of Peleus, allied 
as it is with Threx, or Thracian, affords a similar 
indication. Again, Thamuris, the Bard who attended 
the solemn public competitions of song, and challenged 
the Muses, and whom I suppose, like those compe- 
titions themselves, to be Hellenic, was a Thracian. 
There is therefore less difficulty in assigning this route 
unequivocally to the Hellic than to the Pelasgian race. 



CHAPTER V. 



The Phoenicians and the Egyptians. 



Direct Notices. 

i. Minos, who is stated by Thucydides 1 to have 
been the first known founder of a maritime empire, 
appears in Homer as the greatest and most important 
of his archaic personages. The achievements of Hera- 
cles are personal, indeed corporal ; but the name of 
Minos, whether mythical or not, is a symbol of political 
power, of the administration of justice, in a word, of 
civilisation. He is the only person, indeed, lying so 
far back in time as three generations before the War, 
about whom Homer has supplied us with any details 
of real and historic interest. 

Minos had Zeus for his father, and the daughter of a 
distinguished Phoenician 2 (such appears to be the most 
probable interpretation, but in substance there is little 
doubt about the meaning) for his mother. At nine 
years old he received revelations from Zeus 3 , and 
reigned over all Crete, at that early age, in the great 

1 i. 4. 2 II. xiv. 321. 3 II. xiii. 450-453 ; Od. xix. 178. 



THE PHCENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 1 1 9 

city of Knossos 1 , named first among the Cretan cities 
in the Catalogue. He was the father of Deucalion, 
and the grandfather of Idomeneus 2 , who, at the period 
of the War, was passing from middle life into old age 3 , 
and had begun to feel its effects in failure of the 
organs of sense. After death, the Cretan sovereign 
exercised the office of a ruler in the realm of A'idoneus, 
and administered justice among the dead 4 , as a king 
does among his subjects upon earth. His brother Rha- 
damanthus 5 , hardly less distinguished, has the custody 
of the Elysian Plain. Him the Phaiakes conveyed (by 
water from Scherie 6 ) to Eubcea, on his way to Pano- 
peus of the Phokes, for the purpose, apparently, of his 
passing judgment upon Tituos, son of Gaia, who had 
offered violence to Leto, as she was on her way (pro- 
bably from Delos) to Putho or Delphi 7 . The presump- 
tion arising upon these passages is, that Rhadamanthus 
was acting for his brother Minos, and that the authority 
of that sovereign prevailed not only in Scherie but in 
Phokis ; in other words, that he bore sway over a con- 
siderable dominion, both maritime and continental, in 
Greece. 

This connection with Scherie confirms his Phoeni- 
cian character : and the signs of an authority extending 
to the mainland of Greece, and to the islands on its 
western coast, appear to be plain. It may be as a relic 
of this dominion, that we find in Ithaca a harbour of 
Phorcus 8 , who is a maritime god of the Phoenicians. 
General tradition reports that Minos laid a tribute 

1 II. ii. 646. 2 II. xix. 180. 3 II. xxiii. 469, 476. 

* Od. xi. 569. 5 Od. iv. 564. 

6 See the Outer Geography, infra, Gh. XIV. 

7 Od. vii. 321-324; xi. 576-581. 8 Od. xiii. 96. 



120 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

upon Attica 1 . Of this we have no direct evidence 
from Homer ; but the fact that Theseus went to Crete 
to seek Ariadne the daughter of Minos to wife 2 , indi- 
cates a political relation between* them, and in this 
way partially sustains the tradition. 

Minos is in the last-named passage called oloo- 
phron 3 . This is a word confined by Homer to the 
circle of Phoenician personages. The epithet seems to 
imply in some form a formidable if not injurious craft. 
It may apply to the character of the Phoenicians as 
astute and tricky merchants, who acted at times as 
kidnappers and pirates: but as it is applied to great 
personages 4 , Atlas, Aietes, and Minos, it may probably 
refer to what is politically formidable ; and, if so, it 
may well be a trace of a former supremacy in Greece, 
standing in connection with the Phoenician name. 

It may even be doubted whether Homer does not 
mean to describe the Phoenician tongue as still spoken 
in Crete ; for he says 5 that in that island there is a 
mixture of languages. This with him is a significant 
and rare expression. It is difficult to suppose that he 
would have used it merely because the island contained 
Pelasgian as well as Hellenic races. For he speaks 
of the mixed tongue of the Trojan army, not in con- 
nection with the people of Troas, who probably spoke 
the same or nearly the same language with the Greeks, 
but with the allies 6 , of whom he distinctively calls the 
Carians barbarophonoi 7 . He applies the phrase 

1 See the Dialogue Minos, ascribed to Plato, 16, 17. 

2 Od. xi. 322. 

3 Oloos is applied to an adverse divinity. See II. iii. 365; 
xxii. 15. 4 Od.'i. 52; x. 137. 

5 Od. xix. 175. 6 II. ii. 203, 204. 7 lb. 867. 



V.] THE PHOENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. l%\ 

allothrooi 1 to the people of Temese in Cyprus, who 
were probably Phoenician. If the Phoenicians gave 
Crete its name, then the Eteocretes of this passage 
of the Odyssey may be a Phoenician race, amidst the 
other four, which are apparently Hellenic and Pelas- 
gian. This conjecture is in some degree supported by 
the fact that the Poet calls them megaletores, or 
haughty; an epithet suited to a race in possession of 
political ascendancy, much in accordance with the 
oloop.hr on already cited, and yet more closely with 
another of his Phoenician epithets, agauos 2 . 

It is possible that the Deucalion whom the later 
tradition connects with Thessaly, may have been the 
son of Minos; and that his appearance there ought 
to be taken as another indication that the power of 
Minos reached to that region. Thucydides 3 states that 
this personage appointed his children to be hegemones 
or rulers; which implies a dominion distributed in pro- 
vinces, and also Asiatic in some of its features. 

If this be so, then, on finding Minos installed as 
a ruler in the Underworld, we reasonably conclude 
that he is not so placed by the arbitrary choice of the 
Poet, but that he governs below the same persons, of 
the same countries, which he had governed upon earth. 
In short, that his office there is a testimony to the 
existence of a bygone Phoenician dominion, exercised 
in Greece from Crete as a centre. The great wealth 
of Crete is eminently in harmony with this hypothesis. 

Bishop Thirlwall 4 has explained the position of 
Minos, as it is defined by general tradition. Again, 
the existence of an empire connected with his name 

1 Od. i. 183. 2 Od. xiii. 272. 

3 i. 4. * Hist, of Greece, i. 5. 



122 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

best explains the partial introduction of Cretan insti- 
tutions into Laconia. I have elsewhere x ventured on 
the conjecture that the mnoia, or public slavery, of 
Crete was an institution of Minos, and is named 
after him. 

Herodotus repeats, that Minos expelled his brother 
Sarpedon from Crete • and that Sarpedon colonised 
Lycia, which, even in the time of the historian, was 
governed by laws partly Cretan. If the royal house 
of Lycia was thus connected with that of Crete, and 
with the man who made the first recorded effort to 
bind Greece together in civil order, it gives a satis- 
factory explanation to the remarkable partiality which 
the poet always shows in the Iliad for the Lukioi or 
Lycians, far above all the other portions of the Trojan 
force. 

Again, Homer places Daidalos in Crete; and says 
that he wrought there for Ariadne, in metal, a dance, 
which formed the model of that wrought by Hephaistos 
on the shield of Achilles 2 . He could not more dis- 
tinctly have connected the Crete of Minos with the 
Phoenicians than by placing there the great traditional 
producer of works in metallic art, from whose name 
was taken the verb baibdWetv^ to embellish. 

Next to Minos we may consider the case of Kadmos 
in connection with the Phoenician name and race. 
Homer gives us conclusive evidence of the migration 
of such a person into Greece, by calling the inhabitants 
of Thebes, one generation before the Troica, by the 
names of Kadmeioi and Kadmeiones. His proper 
name is only mentioned in the Odyssey as the father 

1 Studies on Homer, vol. i. p. 179. 

2 II. xviii. 592. 



V.] THE PHOENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 1 23 

of Leukothee \ once a mortal, now deified in the Sea- 
region, who appears to Odysseus after the wreck of his 
raft on the way from Ogugie, and provides him with 
a girdle for his preservation from the angry flood. 
There could hardly be a more distinct intimation of 
the Phoenician extraction of Ino than her deification, 
not in Greece, but in the Sea-sphere, and her appear- 
ing to Odysseus before he had regained the threshold of 
the Greek world. 

We learn from general tradition that the Thebes of 
Kadmos had seven gates, which were in correspondence 
with the sevenfold planetary worship of the East. And 
Homer 2 calls the Thebes of the Kadmeioi seven- 
gated. But Kadmos was not the first founder of the 
city : its first founders were Amphion and Zethos 3 : 
and Homer, when he mentions the foundation by them, 
does not call it seven-gated, but champaign, from the 
character of the country, conformably to the description 
given by Thucydides. 

In the Underworld of the Odyssey we find a great 
proportion of persons having Phoenician associations. 
Again, the name Phoinix had, at the epoch of the 
War, been variously naturalised in Greece. Besides 
being a Greek proper name, it also meant a Phoeni- 
cian, a palm-tree, and a purple dye 4 . 

The most important works of art named in the 
poems are obtained from the Phoenicians. Not only 
was this the case with works in metal, but it was from 
Sidonia that Paris brought the beautifully wrought 
tissues which were so prized by the royal family of 
Troy 5 . And all navigation, except that of the coasts 

1 Od. v. 333. 2 II. iv. 406. 3 Od. xi. 263. 

* Od. xiv.288; v. 163; II. iv. 141. 5 II. vi 289. 



124 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

and the iEgean, appears to be, at the Homeric period, 
practically in the hands of the same people. The 
Taphians, who carry iron to Temese 1 in Cyprus, and 
mean to bring back copper, appear clearly to be a 
Phoenician colony. Odysseus, feigning that he had 
escaped from Crete to Ithaca 2 , speaks, as if it had been a 
matter of course, about the ship's company who brought 
him, as Phoenicians. In his second fiction 3 , and here 
again as if it were a matter of course, it is a Phoe- 
nician rogue who inveigled him in Egypt, carried him 
to Phoenicia, and then intended to take him to Libya 
and sell him for a slave. When Odysseus represents him- 
self in another of his fictions as a practised navigator, he 
is a Cretan, but he is one of the highest station, and 
represents himself as having been the colleague of Ido- 
meneus in the Trojan command ; therefore, probably, as 
like him of a Phoenician family 4 . Eumaios, telling of 
his own home in the distant Surie 5 , describes how the 
Phoenicians came thither for trade or kidnapping, and 
how a Phoenician woman was a domestic in his father's 
house 6 . Alone among the races of the epoch, the Phoi- 
nikes, with their imagined counterparts, the Phaiakes, 
are called nausiclutoi ', c ship-famous.' 

The immense fame acquired, and the mythical 
character assumed, by the single great Achaian 
voyage of the traditionary fore-time, that of the ship 
Argo to the Euxine, combine with all the other 
negative evidence of the Poems to prove to us how 
completely the Greeks of the Homeric age were de- 

1 Od. i. 184. 2 Od. xiii. 272. 3 Od. xviii. 290-300. 

4 Od. xiv. 230, 237. 5 Od. xv. 415. 6 lb. 417. 

7 Od. xv. 414 ; vii. 39 ; xvi. 227. 



V.] THE PHCENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. \1$ 

pendent on the Phoenicians for their ordinary inter- 
course with the outer world- and the outer world 
here means everything beyond the Greek Peninsula, 
with the islands coasting it to the south of the Corin- 
thian Gulf, and with the islands and coasts of the 
iEgean. 

Besides the name Phoinix, we have in the poems 
the names of Marathon, Turo (Tyre), and Danae \ 
which are all apparently represented in Phoenician 
names still traceable on that coast. 

The direct notices of Egypt in the Poems are much 
narrower than those of Phoenicia; and the name 
Aiguptios 2 , borne by an Ithacan noble, is perhaps 
the sole positive trace which we find of an Egyptian 
influence within the limits of Greece. 

Egyptian Thebes was known as a city of vast 
wealth, with twenty thousand persons possessed of 
chariots, and with an hundred gates 3 . 

In the Odyssey we learn that Menelaos, driven 
by the winds, visited the Aiguptioi 4 . In the palace 
of Menelaos 5 , one of the attendants of Helen carried 
her silver basket 6 , given her by Alkandre, wife of 
Polubos, who dwelt in Egyptian Thebes. Helen had 
likewise the drug of marvellous effects, which may 
have been opium. This drug had been presented to her 
by the Egyptian Poludamna, wife of Thon 7 . It grew 
in Egypt, which abounds in drugs, and where all the 
inhabitants are unrivalled physicians, being of the 
race of Paieon 8 . 

1 See Renan's Phenicie. 2 Od. ii. 15. 

3 II. ix. 381-384; Od. iv. 127. * Od. iii. 300. 

5 Od. iv. 87. 6 Od. iv. 125. 

7 Od. iv. 227-232. 8 See Paieon, infra, Gh. VIII. 



126 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

In this region Menelaos was detained by the gods 
for neglecting to offer the proper sacrifices, at Pharos \ 
a day's sail from the mainland. There he had his 
interview with Eidothee, and his conflict with Proteus, 
the servant of Poseidon 2 . By Proteus, after his 
victory, he was directed to return to the mouth of 
the river Nile, which, as well as the country, was 
called Aiguptos. At that point he was to make his 
offerings, which he did. And there he erected a 
funeral mound in honour of Agamemnon, c for his 
eternal fame 3 .' This passage seems to show either 
that Agamemnon was already known in Egypt, or 
that the memorial would make him famous because 
it was in so famous a country. In either sense, parti- 
cularly in the latter, the recital savours of some tradi- 
tion which exhibited Egypt as a great centre of power. 

In the fiction where Odysseus pretends to be a 
Cretan, and the bastard son of Kastor, he relates 
that he sailed to Egypt with a crew, who in spite of 
him began to lay waste the exceeding fine fields (peri- 
calleas agrous) of the Egyptians 4 , and to assail the 
inhabitants. Next morning the Egyptians gather in 
great numbers and drive off" the marauders, killing 
many, and reducing the rest to slavery. As being 
their chief, he besought the king's mercy. He was 
treated with exceeding kindness both by the king, 
and, after the first excitement, by the people. In 
this passage 5 Homer calls Egypt c the well-watered.' 

In another fiction Odysseus relates that he went 
with free-wandering pirates, probably meaning Phoe- 
nicians, to Egypt, and the very same circumstances 

1 Od. iv. 351 seqq. 2 Od. v. 386. 3 lb. 584. 

4 Od. xiv. 249-287. 5 lb. 257. 



V.] THE PHCENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 1<ZJ 

are repeated- but this time, instead of his applying 
to the king and obtaining mercy, he reports that they 
made him over to Demetor, the lord of Cyprus \ 

We have no such thing as a voluntary voyage to 
Egypt by a pure Greek, or as any voyage to Greece by 
an Egyptian. The sea which separates them is so wide, 
that the very birds can traverse it but once a year 2 . 

And yet, though Homer knew little of Egypt, he had 
informants who told him of what lay beyond it. 
Most strange it is to find that his account of the 
Pugmaioi or Pigmies 3 , so long regarded as pure fable, 
has been found, according to recent travellers, to be 
founded in fact. 

Such are the direct Homeric notices of these two 
countries. But eight Books of the Odyssey (v-xii) 
describe the adventures of the hero on his way home. 
From the time when he leaves the Kikones, whose 
country is his very first halting-place, and passes Cape 
Malea, the scene of these adventures is in an outer 
world, evidently foreign to Greek experience. They 
are made up from materials just such as the tales of 
daring seamen would supply, with the double resource of 
strange fact and of embellishment at will : and, in all 
probability, also with a tendency to give to places and 
persons an aspect not too inviting to the Greeks, who 
might have seemed capable of becoming, as indeed they 
did become, their competitors in a lucrative pursuit. 

Among the reasons for supposing the materials of 

1 Od. xvii. 424-444. 2 Od. iii. 318-322. 

3 II. iii. 6. See in the Revue des Deux Mondes for Oct. 1855, 
Review of the work of the German missionary Dr. Krapf, 
pp. 886, 904. These Pigmies are 'hauts d'un metre a un metre 
trente centimetres.' 



128 JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



CHAP. 



this part of the Odyssey to be Phoenician, come first 
these two, that Greek experience could not have sup- 
plied them, and that the Phoenicians could. 

Thirdly, we are brought into contact, while the scene 
is laid in this region, with an altered mythology. 
Most of the Olympian deities retire, for the time, 
from the stage. On the other hand, the prerogatives 
of Poseidon are enhanced ; and we even find him 
apparently presiding at an Olympian meeting 1 . A 
new deity, faintly glanced at in the Iliad as having 
Trojan sympathies, comes forward in full personality 
and with distinct attributes. Poseidon's sway seems 
to lie towards the west and north : it is as we move 
eastward that we encounter Helios, the Sun. He 
appears as a recognised member of the Court of 
Immortals: he has descendants, and satellites, and 
an island on earth especially consecrated to him. Here 
too we trace the strongest marks of the sacredness 
of the ox, an idea wholly alien to the Hellenic mytho- 
logy. And, in these Books of the Poem, both sea and 
land are peopled with new and strange half-human 
races, and with a fresh series or cycle of personages 
properly mythological, who stand in no relations to the 
most familiar of the Greek deities, but only to Poseidon 
and Helios. Nay a change even of diet confronts us ; 
and, as we get clear away from the Hellenic world, 
the ox ceases to be used as food, his place being taken 
by sheep and swine. In short the evidence is full and 
thick, to the effect that we have passed into a new 
and foreign world. 

When such evidence has reached the point of suffi- 
ciency for a legitimate induction, it gives us authority 

1 Od. viii. 321, 344. 



V.] THE PECENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. I2G. 

to pronounce Phoenician, from the company in which 
we find it, even what may not of itself and directly 
bear the stamp: and further, when reflected on the 
Hellenic world, it enables us to discern and identify 
many notes of Phoenician influence, which, but for 
this clue, we should have been unable to detect. 

And the consequence is, that we find the debt of 
Greece to Phoenicia to be very large: so large as to 
be inexplicable, until we bear in mind that, if the 
Phoenicians were the only foreigners at that time in 
ordinary contact with Greece, it is highly probable 
that all, which the Greeks knew or received through 
the arrival of Phoenician vessels, would with them 
commonly bear the Phoenician name. It may indeed 
well have happened that the name Phoenician should, 
for the Greek people of that day, become the synonym 
or representative of c foreign ; ' so that whatever came 
from Syria, Assyria, or Egypt, would sound as Phoe- 
nician to the Homeric ear, much as in later times 
every foreigner in the Levant was a Frank, and as 
in Abyssinia (we are told) a foreigner is, at this our 
own epoch, termed an Egyptian. 

Phoenicia, so understood, comes to mean for Homer, 
when taken in its widest sense, the East : and the 
conclusion to which I am led, as the probable result 
of an inquiry much too large to be here set out in de- 
tail, is no less than this : that, under cover of the Phoe- 
nician name, we can trace the channels, through which 
the old parental East poured into the fertile soil of the 
Greek mind the seeds of civilisation in very many (to 
speak moderately) of its most conspicuous provinces T . 

1 The argument is partly stated in the Quarterly Review for 
January 1868, art. 'Phoenicia and Greece.' 

K 



I30 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

To begin with Greek commerce and navigation. 
Both these pursuits were in Phoenician hands at the 
epoch of the Poems. Ever since the time of Minos, 
without doubt, the Greeks had been their apt pupils : 
but, even at the epoch of the Troi'ca, they were far 
behind their masters. From what Homer says of the 
Arcades 1 , I conclude that the Pelasgian tribes were 
not apt to acquire nautical habits. 

It is on general tradition that we must in a great 
degree rely for showing that Greece owed to Phoe- 
nicia, by the immigration of Kadmos, the gift of 
letters: and these were probably at first rudimentary 
symbolical signs, rather than a regular alphabet. For, 
had an alphabet been conveyed to Greece several 
generations before the War, we must surely have 
perceived more of its results. But the general tradi- 
tion, thus understood, receives both direct and in- 
direct support from the text of Homer. Proitos, ruling 
over, or, as it might well be rendered, mightier than, 
the Argeioi 2 , sends by Bellerophon a fatal mes- 
sage, couched in signs which were intelligible, not to 
the bearer, but to the receiver. Now one of the 
seven gate of Thebes bore the name of Proitos 3 . 
He is spoken of as one who had come in and acquired 
a sovereignty in Greece by strength or talent 4 . On 
the one side, he is in relations with the family of 
Sisuphos, which we shall find reason to suppose Phoe- 
nician- on the other side, with the royal house of 
Lycia, as to which we have already found similar 
presumptions 5 . And these facts date from a period 
of two generations before the War. Yet, in the 

1 II. ii. 614. 2 II. vi. 157. 3 Paus. ix. 8. 4; iEsch. Sept. 360; 
Eurip. Phoen. 1109. 4 II. vi. 159. 5 II. vi. 157, 168. 



V.] THE PHCENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 131 

ordinary dealings of the Greeks, we find nothing like 
written memorial or record. It appears, then, as if 
an art of writing, but one of rude and ill-developed 
contrivance, remained in Greece as an occult art, the 
privileged possession of a few Phoenician families. 

The Pelasgians have been sometimes supposed to 
have brought the art of building with hewn stone into 
Greece. And yet the rival name, commonly given to 
the ancient remains of this class, is Cyclopian. But 
what is Cyclopian is, as we see from the Odyssey, im- 
mediately related to Poseidon and to the cycle of Phoe- 
nician tradition. Now I think we may lay down this 
rule : that wherever Homer mentions solid building, 
or the use of hewn or polished stone, we find it always 
in some relation to the Phoenicians. Tiruns is c the 
well-walled V But Apollodorus, Strabo, and Pausanias 2 
report (in no conflict with Homer) that it belonged 
to Proitos, and was built for him by the Cyclops. The 
wall of Troy 3 , which so long defied the Greeks, was 
built by Poseidon 4 the Phoenician god : that is to say, 
by Phoenician artisans. The same supposition will 
apply to another Trojan edifice, the pa 1 ace of Priam 5 . 
Again, there were polished stones in the mansion of 
Kirke 6 ; a Phoenician goddess. There was a court 
before the cave of the Cyclops ' built with hewn stone ; 
and the Agore or market-place of Scherie 8 was con- 
structed in like manner ; both scenes belonging to the 
Outer or Phoenician world. 

1 II. ii. 559. 

2 Apollodorus, B. ii. c. 2; Strabo, viii. p. 372; Paus. ii. 16. 4; 
Pind. Fragm. 642. 

II. xxi. 516. 4 II. xxi. 446. 5 II. vi. 242, 243. 



A 

6 Od. x. 211. 7 Od. ix. 185. 8 Od. vi. 267, 



K 2 



132 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

That the Phaiakes, the people of Scherie, now 
Corfu, were Phoenicians, has been argued by Col. Mure 1 
from their name and their pursuits. There are 
abundance of confirmatory arguments; such as the 
worship of Poseidon as their chief god ; the descent of 
their royal house from him 2 : the return of Athene 
from Scherie to Athens by Marathon 3 , a place which 
was out of her way, but which appears, from a com- 
parison of the word with the Marathus of Phoenicia 4 , 
to have been a Phoenician settlement. Now we 
observe, that these Phaiakes prided themselves es- 
pecially on their skill in games : in boxing, wrestling, 
leaping, running 5 : and Odysseus gained immense 
honour by his successful cast of the quoit 6 . The games 
in Scherie are the only games regularly described in 
Homer, besides those of the Twenty-third Iliad. They 
do not include the horse or the chariot race, nor is the 
horse mentioned anywhere in Scherie. But they ap- 
pear to give us a clear indication that the use of these 
competitive matches in feats of bodily strength was 
derived from the Phoenicians. And if so, then, taken 
in connection with the absence of the horse from 
Scherie, they suggest a natural explanation of what 
I for one have found a most difficult subject, namely, 
the close connection between the horse and the god 
Poseidon, by the following hypothesis. That the 
institution of games, being Phoenician, was under 
the god Poseidon. That the legend of the Centaurs, 
and the immense preponderance of interest attaching 
to the chariot-race in II. xxiii., warrant us in the 

1 History of Greek Literature, i. 510. 2 Od. vi. 266. 

? ' Od. vii. 56. * Renan, Phenicie, pp. 20, 97. 

5 Od. viii. 100-103, 158-164. 6 Od. viii. 235, seqq. 



V.] THE PHCENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 1 33 

belief that the Hellenic tribes, much given to horse- 
manship, introduced the horse into the institution of the 
Games. And lastly, that the horse, by his introduction 
into the Games, which (from II. xi.) we know to have 
taken place at least two generations before the Troica, 
came under the special care and patronage of Poseidon. 

With respect to fine art, it seems impossible to 
resist the clear and ample evidence of the Homeric text, 
to the effect, first, that works well deserving that name 
in all essentials existed in the time of Homer 1 • and 
secondly, that they are exhibited to us as proceeding 
from a Phoenician source. 

Lastly, there is reason from Homer to suppose, that 
not perhaps the vital spark of poetry, but yet the use 
and art of music came to Greece from those whom he 
calls Phoenicians. In the first place, it is only in the 
palace of Alkinoos that Homer has presented us with 
the Bard actually at work; not only as one regularly 
installed in the household, but with his successive lays 
given at length. In the palace of Odysseus, the Poet only 
mentions, and that but once 2 , the subj ect of the lay : in 
the palaces of Menelaos and Nestor, which afforded ad- 
mirable opportunities, we do not hear of the Bard at all. 
Again, when we enter the mythologic circle of the Phoe- 
nicians, we have all the beings of the highest order, whom 
it contains, engaged in music : the Sirens, who may be 
called goddesses of the chant ; Calypso and Kirke, who 
have no special connection with the art, but both of 
whom are found singing in their respective abodes 3 . 

If these reasonings be well founded, it may be asked 

1 See 'Hephaistos' and 'Art/ infra. Chap. VIII. sect. ix. ; 
and Chap. XIV. sect. ii. 

2 Od. i. 327. 3 Od. v. 61 ; x. 221. 



134 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CIIAP. 

what contributions were made by Pelasgians and 
Hellenes to that marvellous aggregate which we know 
as the Greek nation. The answer, I presume, would 
be this. That the Pelasgian races brought into Greece 
the pursuits of agriculture, and the habits of a settled 
life. That the practice, or discipline (it was more than 
a sport), of hunting, which had so powerful a hold on 
the mind of Homer, and that a high political genius, 
together with an extraordinary excellence in war, were 
rather due to the masculine habits, both mental and 
bodily, of the Hellenic tribes. But that the main 
question is not the actual possession of this or that 
accomplishment, of this or that institution- it is the 
possession of the quality, in soul or body, which is 
adapted first to receive the gift as into a genial bed, 
and then so to develope its latent capabilities as to carry 
them onwards, and upwards, to its perfection. Among 
all the gifts of the great nations of modern Europe, how 
many are there which we can affirm to be, in each case, 
absolutely original 1 ? 

But then follows the just demand of a sound criticism, 
that for such gifts as it may seem that the East may 
have conveyed to Greece at the time when its energies 
were beginning to expand, we ought to be able to 
point out an adequate personal medium, through which 
the communication was effected. It would be much 
to lay all this honour upon Minos, whose empire, what- 
ever it was, had passed away, and the more enduring 
fruits of whose political achievements do not seem, for 
the time, to have reached beyond the bounds of Crete; 
or upon Kadmos, whose influence, whatever it had been, 

1 It seems to be admitted that the very bagpipe of the High- 
lander is a comparatively modern introduction. 



V.] THE PHCENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 1 35 

certainly had not made the Thebes of the Troic period 
an c eye of Greece ' or a recognised centre of its 
civilisation, as it ought to have done had he supplied 
the channel through which were so largely transmitted 
by his mother-country the gifts of civilisation : not 
to mention, that with respect to each of these person- 
ages it is questioned whether they were real, or only 
mythical. Minos, indeed, stands near the period of 
the War. But Kadmos is more remote ; and I learn 
from distinguished authority that his name signifies 
simply one coming from the East. Either way, it may 
justly be urged that a channel should be indicated for 
those most fruitful communications, which I suppose to 
have taken place. To this reasonable demand I pro- 
pose to suggest a reply. 

But here our path must be a little circuitous. In my 
Studies on Homer I have endeavoured to point out, 
that we have no warrant from the Poems for speaking 
of an JEoWc dialect of the Greek tongue, or of supposed 
yEolians as the prevailing race of Greeks at the Troic 
or the Homeric period. Nor is Homer merely silent 
on the subject; for while he tells us nothing of the 
existence of the iEolians as a tribe, he tells us of 
Aiolid houses, and gives us to understand that from 
this stock proceeded a considerable proportion of the 
reigning families of Greece during and before his time. 
From him we hear of Sisuphos reigning in Corinth, 
descended from Aiolos : of the Neleids in Pulos, of 
Pelias, of Aison, Pheres, Amuthaon, all similarly de- 
scended : of Augeias reigning in fertile Elis, to whom 
tradition gives a similar extraction. The question 
arises, were these Aiolids Phoenician ? 

If they were, we have to add to them, first, Kadmos 



136 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

and Minos, already reckoned ; then the great house of 
the Actoridai, which is described as being descended 
from Poseidon ; then Proitos, who made himself King 
of the Argeioi; and, lastly, there is every reason to 
suppose that Danaos was a Phoenician. That in the 
later tradition he stands for an Egyptian is not to be 
wondered at, when we consider how the two countries 
melted into one another, in the view of the early 
Greeks, like a concave line of bays upon a coast trend- 
ing towards a distant horizon • and while Phoenician 
vessels were the channel of communication, Phoenicia 
itself was, before the time of the Troica, deeply charged 
with Egyptian elements. M. Renan has found a dis- 
trict in the neighbourhood of Tripoli called Dannie 1 , or 
Dyanniyeh. So in the old Irish histories we find that 
the third recorded invasion of the island was effected 
by the Tuath-de-Danaans, who are stated to have 
been a Greek people 2 . No doubt they are set down 
as Greek, because of the connection established in 
Homer between Greece and the Danaan name. But 
we see at once, so far as the Irish tradition is con- 
cerned, how much more appropriate it becomes, if the 
name Danaan be of Phoeuician extraction. Again : 
Pausanias tells us 3 that there stood at the reputed land- 
ing-place of Danaos, on the Argive coast, a temple 
of Poseidon Genesios, an association which at once 
assigns to that personage a Phoenician origin. 

I return, then, to the question of the Aiolids. And, 
first, as to Troas. We have found signs that in Ilios, 
Troy of the plain, the Phoenicians themselves, or the 

1 Phenicie, p. 12^5. 

2 The Irish before the Conquest, by M. C. Ferguson, p. 7. 
2 ii. 16. 4. 



V.] THE PHCENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 1 37 

Phoenician worship of Poseidon, had been cast out ; and 
this ejection is probably represented in the poetic or 
traditionary fiction, that the god Poseidon had become 
bitterly hostile to the city of Priam. Not so in Dar- 
dania ; for Poseidon specially protects iEneas, the heir 
to that sovereignty, and rescues him, at the critical 
moment, from the attack of Achilles 1 . This at once 
betokens a relation between Poseidon and the Darda- 
nian branch of the royal house of Troas. 

Here history comes in to our aid. Pausanias 2 and 
others assure us that, in the historic period, there were 
iEolians at a place called Assos in Troas, and that an 
^Eolian race held what was reputed to have been Troy. 
And the general connection of iEolians with the wor- 
ship of Poseidon may, I believe, be taken as an uncon- 
tested fact. 

Everything combines to raise the presumption thus 
obtained, about the Phoenicianism of the Aiolids, to 
the rank of a rational conclusion. Take, for example, 
the fact that Homer never mentions Aiolos himself in 
conjunction with his Aiolids. Considering their illus- 
trious position, this reticence demands observation; 
especially as in almost every case Homer names the 
person who stands at the head of one of his genealogies. 
If Aiolos were a Greek, either born or naturalised, it 
seems wholly inexplicable. But if Aiolos were an im- 
migrant who never lost his foreign character, or if he 
were the famous foreign sire or ancestor of men who 
acquired sovereignties in Greece ; or, thirdly, if he were 
only a mythical formation, representing the foreign 
paternity of a group of distinguished men who had cast 
their lot in that country, then nothing can be more in 

1 II. xx. 318-340. 2 vi. 4. 5. 



138 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

keeping with the general method of the Poet than that, 
just as he cuts the thread which connects the Pelopids 
with Tantalos (and, in the preternatural order, the thread 
which connects Demeter with Persephone), so he should 
cut the thread which connects the Aiolids with Aiolos. 

Again, observe the link supplied by horse-breeding, 
and by the introduction of the horse into the Games. 
Two generations before the Troica, Augeias, a reputed 
Aiolid, holds Games in Elis 1 , probably at what was 
afterwards Oiympia: and at these Games there were 
chariot-races : and it is in direct connection with 
Games that all which relates to horses is placed under 
the sanction of Poseidon 2 , whom tradition so long con- 
nected with the Olympian contests 3 . Eumelos, an 
Aiolid, has the finest mortal horses of the army 4 . The 
Trojans, who had iEolian relations, are famous for 
their horses. Sisuphos, an Aiolid, reigns in Corinth 5 : 
and this is one of the districts where Poseidon strives 
against another deity for the sovereign worship 6 , and 
obtains it as far as the low ground is concerned 7 . 

If then Aiolos was foreign, and was connected with 
Poseidon, he could hardly be other than Phoenician. 
We turn then to those books of the Odyssey which 
we have found to have been constructed out of Phoe- 
nician materials. And here we meet him, exactly such 
as we might have anticipated, in consonance with the 
foregoing data. If Aiolids, settled in Greece, had 

1 II. xi. 699-702. 2 II. xxiii. 581-585. 

:i Pindar, in the Olympic Odes. 4 II. ii. 763. 

6 II. vi. 152. 6 Pind. 01. xiii. 4. 

7 For a large collection of particulars about Poseidon, see Ger- 
hard, Ursprung, &c. des Poseidon, in the Berlin Transactions ; and 
Preller, Gr. Mythologie, vol. i. p. 452. 



V.] THE PHOENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 139 

brought the use of the horse into the Games, nothing 
could be more natural than that Homer should mythi- 
cally connect Aiolos with the horse : accordingly, even 
in this foreign region, and upon this sea-girt isle, 
Aiolos is the son of Hippotas 1 , a name of Greek ety- 
mology. If the Aiolids were sea-borne to Greece, so 
Aiolos dwells in a sea-island, and is the guardian of 
the winds. If they were a large variety of houses from 
one ancestor, either real or supposed, so we find him 
supplied with six prolific pairs of children : brothers 
and sisters, coupled together in a way which was 'alien 
to Greek manners, but which we may, reasoning from 
analogy, suppose to have been much more agreeable to 
Phoenician customs and ideas. If the actual or ideal 
person represented in Greece by the name of Aiolos 
was popularly taken to be connected with the ruling 
houses of Greece, and with Troy, then it is quite 
natural that he should feel an interest in the Trojan 
War. Accordingly, the Aiolos of the Odyssey inquires 
minutely of Odysseus about both Troy and the Greeks 2 : 
which, be it observed, neither Kirke nor Calypso does, 
nor does any other of the foreign personages encoun- 
tered by Odysseus in his tour. 

I suppose, then, that the Aiolos of the Tenth Odyssey 
is the ancestor, real or reputed, of the Aiolid houses 
of Greece named in Homer ; and I remark with some 
confidence, that if he is not this, he is a personage 
wholly unaccountable and unintelligible. 

This somewhat lengthened though- inadequate state- 
ment will, I hope, appear to be justified, when it is 
remembered that the historical question, which under 
the legendary veil invites investigation, is one of 

1 Od. x. 1-4. 2 Od. x. 14-16. 



I40 JUVENTUS MUNDU [CHAP. 

extreme interest: it is the question of the amount, 
the nature, and the channels of the earliest powerful 
Semitic influence upon an Aryan or Japhetic people. 

And this leads me to my concluding point in the 
present argument. It may naturally be asked, is there 
anything in the name Aiolos, which is a Greek name 
and perhaps a mythical one, to account for its being 
applied by Homer to Phoenician or Semitic families ? 
This question has been considered by Dr. Hahn 1 , who 
offers his solution of it. He observes that, among 
many nations, warriors have been tattooed, to make 
them look terrible : and that a tattooed man might very 
well be called Aiolos, or c variegated/ He thinks, 
therefore, that the name Aiolos, which ran, as we see, 
wholly in the ruling class, meant a warrior. 

Without denying the ingenuity of this hypothesis, 
I offer another: for I feel that Dr. Harm's interpreta- 
tion is scarcely applicable to the Greeks of Homer. 
Among them we hear nothing whatever of tattooing; 
nor is the name Aiolos, with its derivatives, particularly 
attached to warriors ; nor have we reason to suppose 
that the Phoenicians were in any manner superior to 
Hellenes in war, however they may have acted as 
teachers, or as forerunners, in arts and knowledge. 

I lean to another explanation of the name, which 
appears to me very simple and sufficient. I find it 
in a fact stated incidentally by Professor Rawlinson 2 . 
He tells us that, among the Persians, dresses were not 
often patterned, but depended generally for their effect 
on make and uniform colour only. And he adds, c In 
all these respects we observe a remarkable contrast 

1 Hahn, Alb. Stud. p. 247. 

2 Ancient Monarchies, vol. iv. p. 326. 



V.] 'THE PHCENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 141 

between the Aryan and the Semitic races, extreme 
simplicity characterising the one, while the most ela- 
borate ornamentation was affected by the other. 5 

If this were so, then nothing could be more natural 
than that when a few prominent and conspicuous per- 
sons from a Semitic country came to settle in Greece, 
and especially when they held there a position and 
attitude of superiority, they should bring with them the 
customs and dress of their country, and that to them, 
in respect of the style of their habiliments, the name of 
Aiolos, meaning patterned or variegated, should attach. 

Let our line of thought now enter upon a somewhat 
wider field. 

If an empire, connected with the Phoenician name, 
had already weighed upon Greece within the memory 
of man ; if Phoenicians, very probably officers of that 
empire, had penetrated the country at a number of 
points, and had usually been able, wherever they ap- 
peared, to obtain the ruling power; we can have no 
cause to wonder that Homer should have regarded 
them as a great power in the past, even if to the 
Greeks of his day they were chiefly known as mer- 
chants or as freebooters. Hence we can be at no loss 
to comprehend how it is that his epithets for them, 
oloophrones, olophoia eidotes, agauoi, go much 
beyond what was necessary to describe the astute man 
of business, or even the daring kidnapper. 

The detection, if it be a real one, of these powerful 
Semitic influences, both in the Greece of Homer, and 
as they had operated before his time, opens a new 
perspective into the ancient history of the world. The 
knowledge of this history has recently much advanced, 
through research of many kinds in various quarters, 



I42 JUVENTUS MUNDI. \ 



CHAP. 



and especially through the interpretation of the Egyp- 
tian hieroglyphics. Before this region of knowledge 
was unbarred to us, the poems of Homer were justly 
regarded, even by those who appreciated the evidences 
for their unity of authorship, as might have been some 
isle of Delos floating on the sea of time, without pos- 
sessing root or anchor visible to human eye, and with- 
out affording us any data whereby we might measure 
the distance of the extraordinary phenomenon from the 
continuous and solid ground, the true ?/7re ipo?, or con- 
tinent, of history. But now the case is altered. Men 
of learning think themselves to have obtained means 
of computation, whereby they can follow the annals of 
Egypt, and, in a degree, of the countries related to it, 
upwards, for thousands of years before the Advent, along 
the stream of time. So far as I understand the matter, 
modern Egyptology adopts in general the chronological 
computations of the priest Manetho, as sufficiently 
corroborated by the deciphered records of the country. 
For myself, I do not understand by what certain crite- 
rion Manetho could distinguish, at the period when 
he wrote, between the contemporaneous and the suc- 
cessive dynasties of the far olden time. It seems that 
he attempted it, and in some cases refrained accord- 
ingly from heaping together in series all the years of 
all the recorded reigns. He may not have been very 
far wrong : but how can we know that he was right ? 
To me the constant changes 1 of the chief seat of 
government, which are allowed to have taken place, 
suggest the suspicion that there may be more of con- 
temporary and less of successive power than is sup- 

1 Le Normant, Histoire Ancienne de l'Orient, Paris, 1868, vol. i. 
p. 187. 



V.] THE PHCENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 1 43 

posed, and that the gross figures of the chronology may 
be exaggerated. But I take them as very rough approxi- 
mations to the truth, which doubtless lies, not beyond, 
but within them. And, so viewing them, it appears to 
me that the period perhaps has arrived when the Poems 
of Homer may, for the first time, be regarded as be- 
coming gradually susceptible of chronological handling, 
and when attempts may not be hopeless to give them 
their approximate if not exact place in relation to the 
main chain of events, which marks for those ancient 
times the central movement of the history of man. 

And this with reference firstly to Phoenicia • se- 
condly and principally to Egypt; which, as I have 
shown, the Greeks of that early day could hardly have 
the means of distinguishing from Phoenicia with regu- 
larity or precision. 

It is plain, from both the Poems, that, at the epoch 
of the Troi'ca, Sidon was in its vigour. The Sidonians 
are mentioned apart from Phoinike, in the list of 
the countries which Menelaos visited \ Here, as we 
find, were produced the noblest works of metallic art 2 ; 
here the richly embroidered robes 3 . From the king 
of Sidon (who has the poetical name of Phaidimos) 
Menelaos receives a noble gift 4 . And some of 
Homer's Phoenician personages are also called Si- 
donian. 

Now the period of the Sidonian supremacy closed, 
as we are told, with the rasing of that city by the 
Philistines in the year 1209 B.C. 5 Then began the 
supremacy of Tyre ; a city of which we have no indi- 
cation throughout the poems, unless we may be thought 

1 Od. iv. 84. 2 Od. iv. 618. 3 il. vi. 290. 

4 Od, iv. 617 ; xv. 117. 5 Le Normant, vol. ii. p. 286. 



144 JUVENTUS MUNDI. |_CHAP. 

to find one in the name of Turo x , the grandmother of 
Nestor. From many signs it appears that Turo must 
have been Phoenician. But Homer tells nothing, 
knows nothing, of a Tyrian. It seems pretty clear, 
then, that the epoch of the War, and probably of the 
Poems, must have been antecedent to the fall of Sidon, 
reputed to have taken place in 1209 B.C. I do not here 
attempt to enter into the complicated questions with 
reference to the succession, juxtaposition, and inter- 
mixture of races in Phoenicia, where all the three great 
families of Noachian man seem to come in turn upon 
the stage • but I simply treat their influence as a Se- 
mitic influence, on the evidence of their Semitic tongue, 
and in conformity I believe with the general judgment 
of persons entitled to authority. 

Now with respect to Egypt. Ample proof is afforded 
by the verse of Homer that the Greeks of the Troic 
period had for their proper national name the name of 
Achaians. We also see very clearly that it had come 
into vogue but one or two generations before the 
Troica. We know that it lost its hold as a national 
name at, if not before, the conquest of the Heracleidai, 
two or three generations later. 

At the end of the nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty 2 , 
and with the reputed date of the fourteenth century 
before Christ, under Merephtah, successor of Rham- 
ses II or Sesostris, it appears from the inscriptions that 
the people of Libya and of the North, who had formerly 
succumbed to the Egyptian power, effected an invasion 
of that country in return. In this invasion participated, 
among others, Achaians of the Peloponnesos, and La- 
konians. They made great havock in the country- 
1 Od. xi. 235. 2 Le Normant, ii. 286. 



V.] THE PHOENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 1 45 

but a great battle was fought, in which they were 
entirely defeated, and their enterprise was broken up. 

It seems in a high degree probable, that this invasion 
occurred during the period which I have described as 
defining the prevalence of the Achaian name, and 
the duration of the supremacy of that noble race of 
Greeks. 

? It is much more likely that the effort was made 
before the War of Troy, than after it ; for the condition 
of Greece was then less impaired by exhaustion and by 
internal revolutions. We have no means of saying 
whether, so far as Greece was concerned, it was a 
national, or only a local effort. It is probable that 
Crete may have been its base : that island was nearest 
to Egypt ; it had a strong Phoenician element, and pro- 
bably a considerable marine ; and in one of the fictions 
of the pseud-Odysseus, when representing himself as a 
Cretan of high rank, he declares that he undertook a 
voyage to Egypt \ an effort in navigation of which we 
hear in no other quarter. 

We need feel no surprise at the silence of Homer 
with respect to this daring enterprise. The Poet, 
frequent and even copious in his allusions to the minor 
legends of his country, seems almost jealous of the 
greater ones. The ship Argo is mentioned but once 
in the Poems 2 ; the allusions to the war of Thebes are 
slight. But if little careful to mix with his own great 
theme the records of what he might deem rival histories, 
in a case like this invasion, another and more powerful 
order of motives would come into play. He sang for 
the glory of Greece • and as on this occasion, sharing 
the disastrous fate of their Libyan allies, his country- 

1 Od. xiv. 246. 2 Od. xii. 70. 

L 



I46 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

men were utterly worsted by the foreigner, it was no 
fit subject for his minstrelsy. Yet it is very remarkable 
that in the fictitious narrative just made, the expedition 
takes the form of an invasion. Great havock at first 
takes place \ But the Egyptians are roused ; a battle is 
fought i the invaders are slain or taken ; a pretty exact 
counterpart, although in miniature, of the history of 
the actual invasion, as it appears in the Egyptian 
records. 

Under Thouthmes III 2 , of what is termed the 
eighteenth dynasty, and at a date taken to be about 
1600 B.C., the military power of Egypt reached its 
zenith. The Empire extended east and northwards 
over Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia, and even into 
Armenia. This military dominion was so constructed 
as to recognise the local governments, under the su- 
zerainty of the Pharaohs. Among the supports of its 
power was a fleet 3 , which established its supremacy 
in the Mediterranean waters. There can be little 
doubt that this fleet was, both in its men and material, 
Phoenician. An inscription at Karnak 4 shows that it 
conquered Crete, the islands of the Archipelago, and 
portions of the coast, at least of Greece and Asia 
Minor. It penetrated into the Black Sea ; and it acted 
on the populations of the Libyan coast. Centuries 
appear to have passed away before this empire, pro- 
bably not too stringent in its action, crumbled into 
fragments. But it subsisted amid much vicissitude. 
In 1462 B.C. the nineteenth dynasty is reckoned to 
commence. It seems doubtful whether the maritime 
supremacy, which there was no native marine able to 

1 Od. xiv. 263. 2 Le Normant, ii. 239. 

3 Le Normant, ii. 246. 4 lb. p. 247. 



V.] THE PHCENICIANS AND THE EGYPTIANS. 147 

maintain, had not already dwindled to nothing. The 
second monarch of this dynasty, Seti I, was a great 
warrior j but he made no effort to retrieve the do- 
minion of the sea. 

Here I may venture conjecturally on the following 
observations. The Egyptian history of the maritime 
conquests of Thouthmes III, if we are allowed the 
almost inevitable assumption that the nautical instru- 
ment for creating the supremacy was Phoenician 1 , 
reads like an account in other words of what Thucy- 
dides has slightly but firmly sketched from general 
tradition, and what we are enabled to gather with a 
considerable amount of proof from Homer, respecting 
the empire of Minos in Crete, over the Archipelago, 
and on the continent of Greece. 

But the empire by sea soon vanished; while the 
empire by land, extending it appears into Asia Minor, 
continued, though in varying phases, to subsist. There 
is at least one indication gathered from Homer and 
the general tradition jointly, which would lead to the 
conclusion that the War of Troy took place after the 
fall of the first, but before the disappearance of the 
second, portion of the Egyptian power. The Poems 
are altogether opposed to any idea that a maritime 
Egyptian Empire still existed. Crete, apparently its 
old head-quarter, was not at the Troic period the 
centre of prevailing power that it had been before. 
But Memnon was among the allies of Troy 2 ; and all 
tradition reports that Memnon was Egyptian. It may 
perhaps be worth noting, that the Memnon of Homer 

1 In much later times we find Phoenicia performing much the 
same office for the Persian king. Herod, ii. 19 ; vii. 44. 

2 Od. xi. 522. 

L 2 



148 JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



is gifted with the highest personal beauty, and that 
this honour would not have been awarded by the 
Poet, who above all things admired the lighter hair 
and complexion, to the swarthy, nay tawny, natives 
of the Egypt of our geography. Is it not also highly 
improbable that Priam, whose list of allies in the 
Catalogue stops at Lycia and Caria, should have been 
able to draw an auxiliary force from so great a dis- 
tance ? But if the political Egypt, the Egyptian supre- 
macy or empire of that day, reached as far as Armenia 
or Asia Minor, the difficulty disappears at once ; from 
such a region Memnon might have come, and the 
account of Homer, together with the later tradition, 
becomes natural and intelligible. 

In the year 13 11 B.C., which is considered as a date 
astronomically ascertained \ Rhamses III, the last 
great military monarch of Egypt, came to the throne. 
Mesopotamia, however, was under Egyptian rule as 
late as 1150 b.c. 

The time may be at hand, when, from further inves- 
tigations, it will be possible to define with greater 
precision those periods of the Egyptian chronology 
to which the Homeric Poems, and their subject, thus 
appear to be related. 

In the meantime it may reasonably be pointed out 2 
that the discoveries already made tend to show that 
those inquirers have not been wrong, who have assigned 
the greatest measure of antiquity, and of historical 
character, to the works of Homer. 

1 Le Normant, p. 200. 2 lb. p. 302. 



CHAPTER VI. 



ON THE TITLE 'ANAX ANDRON.' 



There is a substantial distinction between titles, and 
epithets descriptive of station or office. Titles are in 
effect that class of descriptions which have been gra- 
dually accepted by society and established in common 
usage for the purpose of indicating a certain rank or 
function, just as a given weight and form of the pre- 
cious metals is appointed by law or custom to indicate 
a certain value. In both cases the symbol, becoming 
familiar to the minds of all, is accepted in common use 
without examination. 

By titles, and also by epithets, I understand, for the 
present purpose, either adjectives or substantives, as the 
case may be. 

Epithets, or descriptive phrases, may by degrees grow 
into titles : and it is probable that all titles, properly so 
called (I do not now speak of those denoting relation- 
ship), may begin in descriptive phrases. 

One sign of a title is, that it can either be combined 
with the name of the person to whom it belongs, or 
substituted for it. 

In Homer, the substantives hegemones, aristees, 



150 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

and the adjectives skeptouchoi (of kings), theioi (of 
bards), are epithets or descriptive phrases. Again, 
with respect to individuals, echephron (for Penelope), 
pepnumenos (for Telemachos), polumetis (for Odys- 
seus), are descriptive phrases. But Basileus, Basileia, 
for king and queen, are titles. An ax sometimes means 
ruler or lord, somewhat vaguely, as a title ; sometimes 
noble, as a class ; sometimes lord, as a master or pro- 
prietor, for example, of slaves or animals. It differs from 
Basileus in these particulars: first, that it is more 
rarely used as a title; secondly, that, while both in- 
dicate a superiority, the idea conveyed by an ax leans 
to ownership and absolute command, while the Basi- 
leus is a ruler not an owner, a ruler of freemen or- 
ganised under the social bond, and limited by civil right 
which he is himself bound to observe. 

As a designation of dignity, Basileus is the higher, 
as well as the more definite. The word nearest to it 
is koiranos ; but this has hardly, in Homer, settled 
down into a title. The ruling office is also more 
vaguely indicated by the expressions /cpeiW, and TroLfxrjv 
Xa&v, shepherd of the people. Basileus is well ren- 
dered by c king: 5 anax by 'lord,' a word at once 
wider, more absolute, and less elevated in the sense 
it conveys. 

But we find in Homer the remarkable phrase anax 
andron, lord of men; and this is used, not descriptively, 
but, beyond all question, as a title. Now, as the word 
anax has no reference to reciprocal rights and duties, 
it is very remarkable that we should find it thus used 
with regard to relations towards men, and evidently 
freemen, in a title enjoyed by certain individuals. The 
physiognomy of the phrase, so to speak, is not that of 



VI.] ON THE TITLE ' ANAX ANDRON.' 151 

Hellenic society; for Hellenic society was already 
founded in rights. It suggests therefore a history of 
its own, and a character either foreign, or archaic, or 
both. 

The facts relating to the use of this phrase are as 
follows : — ■ 

It is applied to Agamemnon forty-four times in the 
Iliad, and twice in the Odyssey. 
It is also applied to 
iEneas, II. v. 311. Augeias, II. xi. 700, 739. 

Euphetes, II. xv. 532. Eumelos, II. xxiii. 288. 
Anchises, II. v. 268. 

Thus then anax andron is a stock or staple phrase 
for Agamemnon. Yet it is applied to five other per- 
sons, all of them sovereigns ; but none of them at all 
approaching Agamemnon in point either of personal 
eminence, or of power. It is not therefore on account 
of his personal eminence or of his power that the title 
is bestowed on Agamemnon. 

But again. While it is given thus frequently to Aga- 
memnon, it is given but once to four of the other five, 
and but twice to Augeias. One of these personages, 
Euphetes, is named but once in the Poems 1 , and then 
he is named with the title. Augeias (except once in a 
patronymic) is only mentioned twice 2 , in the legend 
of the Eleventh Iliad ; and twice with the title. Eu- 
melos has the title once, out of five passages in which 
he is named. Anchises once only, out of thirteen. But 
iEneas is very frequently named in the Poem, and yet 
never with the title except once. He appears to hold 
it as heir-apparent to his father's throne ; and his 

1 II. xv. 532. 2 II. xi. 700, 738. 



152 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

possession of it marks its hereditary character under 
such circumstances. 

It is to be noticed, that all the six names to which 
Homer annexes the title are virtually of the same 
metrical value in the place of the verse where it is 
almost invariably so annexed. The same observation 
applies to the word Atreides joined with it in II. i. 8. 
At first sight, then, it might appear that metrical con- 
venience had prompted the use of the phrase. But 
then, 

1. Two of the six names, in their simpler forms, 
Aineas and Augeas, are modified into Aineias and 
Augeias in order to fall in with the title. 

%. It cannot be metrical convenience which gives it 
so very frequently to Agamemnon, and so rarely to the 
others. 

3. There are at least from thirty to forty names of 
equivalent metrical value in the Poems, including 
many princes, heroes, and notable persons, which never 
receive the title. Among these are, of the living, 
Patroclos, Sarpedon, Antenor, Diomedes, Agapenor, 
Menelaos, Aigisthos ; and of the dead, Amphion, Hera- 
cles, Eurustheus, Adrestos, Rhadamanthos, Meleagros. 
Homer never inflects the title, giving it always in 
the nominative. He never severs the phrase by tmesis, 
except once only, through inserting the copulative par- 
ticle re. Once, in II. i. 7, it lies between the second 
and fourth foot of the verse ; in every other case it is 
found between the third and fifth. Some of these par- 
ticulars may be held, according to the laws of Homeric 
use, to add dignity to the title. In illustration of this 
proposition, I will observe that, conversely, in the few 
instances where the Poet introduces himself into the 



VI.] ON THE TITLE ' ANAX ANDRON.' 1 53 

verse, he never once uses the nominative. Again, 
Enosicthon is used for Poseidon forty times; thirty- 
nine of them in the nominative. Diogenes is found 
in the nominative and vocative only. The masculine 
kudistos is used sixteen times, all in the vocative. 
Eurucreion twelve times, only in the nominative. 

The phrase anax andron entirely disappears from 
use after Homer. 

Let us now look to particulars connected with the 
application of the phrase to each of the six names 
severally, in order to discover the thread, if there be 
one, on which in common all are hung. 

I. Agamemnon. 

The sovereign of all the Greeks is nowhere described 
by personal epithets of pointed characteristic force. 
Eight times he is called by the epithet dios, which 
indicates some specialty of excellence, and which was 
fairly due to his prominence whether among rulers or 
among warriors. Generally he is marked either by the 
patronymic, which is simply historical, or by what may 
be called official epithets, creion, eurucreion, poi- 
men laon. But the staple or stock phrase is anax 
andron. 

I have already given a reason why this cannot be on 
account of his great power and sway. Again, the pas- 
sages which most forcibly describe these are the lines 
about the Sceptre in II. ii. 100-108, and that which gives 
him his place in the Catalogue, II. ii. 576-580. In 
these he is not called anax andron, but creion. In 
two other passages of the Poem he is personally glori- 
fied : as to his appearance in II. ii. 477-483, and as to 
his arming in II. xi. 15-46. In neither of these is he 



154 JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



CHAP. 



anax andron. Neither corporal distinctions, then, nor 
official position thus far appear to supply a basis for 
the phrase. Yet the very emphatic use of it after the 
proper name in the prefatory passage of the Poem, 
which contains so much, as well as its frequent reitera- 
tion, prove its general dignity and importance. Again, 
therefore, it seems likely that we are to look somewhere 
in the past for the secret of its meaning. 

Unfortunately, in the. case of this great family of the 
Pelopidai, the past at a certain point, and that too one 
soon reached, becomes obscure. 

All that Homer desires or intends us to know of the 
extraction of Agamemnon is contained in the famous 
and very significant passage of the Sceptre, II. ii. 101- 
1 08. Here we are informed that 

1. Hephaistos fashioned it. 

2. He gave it to Zeus. 

3. Zeus gave it over to Hermes Diactoros, the Agent, 
or Go-between ; or Ambassador. 

4. Hermes gave it to Pelops c the driver of horses.' 

5. Pelops gave it to Atreus, shepherd of the people 

(StoKe). 

6. Atreus dying left it (eAivre) ; it remained or passed 
over to Thuestes, rich in flocks. 

7. From Thuestes in like manner it was left to 
Agamemnon (A.ewre). 

8. It conveyed suzerainty (at the least) over all Greece 
and its numerous islands. 

The first question is, what are we to say to the theo- 
techny or preternatural machinery here introduced ? 
If we are to give it an ethnological meaning, the names 
of Hephaistos and of Hermes give it a colour foreign, 
and such as I have called Phoenician. Little stress 



VI.] ON THE TITLE 'ANAX ANDKON.' 1 55 

could be placed upon this, if it were an isolated phe- 
nomenon. But the sphere of the art of Hephaistos, and 
of the general activity of Hermes, lies so completely 
beyond the limits of Greece, that I cannot but attach 
weight to their names as indicating that, before Pelops, 
the family had been foreign, and probably Asiatic. The 
passage also demonstrates that the starting-point of the 
house is one at which it had attained to princely rank. 

Next, the epithet given to Pelops tends to support 
the tradition, which places him in relations with the 
Olympian Games, and with the god Poseidon. 

Further ; Atreus first appears in the Pelopid time as 
c shepherd of the (or a) people/ There is something in 
this phrase which seems to point him out as the first head, 
in the Pelopid line, of a settled and consolidated Greek 
sovereignty. The same inference may be drawn from 
the fact that his name supplies the standing patronymic ; 
as Neleus supplies it to Nestor. There is also some 
more direct evidence. Heracles may be reckoned as 
living one generation and a half before the War, since 
he has in it both a son and grandsons ; and Eurustheus, 
who was his contemporary, reigned in Achaic Argos, 
which afterwards became the seat of the Pelopid power. 
There seems to be only room, therefore, in the natural 
course, for one generation of sovereigns in Achaic Argos 
after Eurustheus and before Agamemnon. 

To this generation probably belong both Atreus and 
Thuestes, the father of Aigisthos. In the change of 
phrase from Sw/ce, c gave, 5 to €\ltt€ and Aetire, Homer may 
seem to glance at a departure from the common line of 
direct succession, and a return to it. Thuestes, then, 
not being in that line (or, if we were to suppose him in 
it, being in it only as the brother of Agamemnon), we 



15*5 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

have but two generations of ancestry, and but one of 
established sovereignty, given for the house of Agamem- 
non ; Pelbps having probably founded the power of the 
house, but not placed it in its fixed seat, or obtained 
for it the full measure of acknowledgment and positive 
authority. 

We see plainly, from this circumstantial account of 
the derivation of the Sceptre, that the Pelopids did not 
simply subvert, or succeed to, a prior dynasty ; but that 
they held a new dominion, legitimated, in poetic phrase, 
by the gift of Zeus. And we know, from the com- 
parison of dates and particulars already made, that this 
was the great Achaian dynasty, having the old Argeian 
dominion for its centre, but reaching much beyond its 
bounds, with an undefined though acknowledged supre- 
macy over Greece and its whole coronet of islands. 

The joint and simultaneous rise of the Achaian race, 
and of the house of Pelops, is well and clearly founded 
in the facts of the text : which, however, carries us but 
little farther. Tradition asserts that Pelops was the 
son of Tantalos, and Tantalos the king of a race of 
Phruges. Homer introduces him to us in the Under- 
world, together with a variety of personages, all of 
whom have relations, in one form or other, with Greece. 
Placing him among such persons, he still conforms to 
his rule by not naming him in the passage of the 
Sceptre; since he never, on any occasion, deduces a 
Greek dynasty from a confessedly foreign ancestor. 

The nature of his punishment, pointing to some form 
of greed as his offence, is also well assorted with the 
tradition which represents him as the last holder of 
his inherited power, and his son as an immigrant in a 
foreign land. 

i 



VI.] ON THE TITLE < 'AN AX ANDRON.' 1 57 

We have no means of determining, from the Poems, 
whether Tantalos was reputed to be of divine descent ; 
but it is far from improbable, since most of those 
among whom he appears in the Odyssey were so de- 
scended, 

Post-Homeric tradition makes Niobe the daughter of 
Tantalos. The tradition of Niobe herself is recited 
by Achilles x , and from this we may infer, first, her dig- 
nity and fame ; next, her having relations with Greece. 
The theotechny, too, of the tradition exhibits her as 
one of the great of the earth ; and the term laous 2 , 
applied to those who were vicariously punished for her 
offence, evidently means her subjects. Very possibly, 
the epithet t}vkoixos, commending the beauty of her hair, 
may indicate that the Poet regarded her as a Greek, 
either born or naturalised. 

Homer places the mourning Niobe on Mount Sipu- 
los, near the Acheloos; and Pausanias found the re- 
puted tomb of Pelops on the summit of the hill. The 
Phruges of Tantalos are reputed to have been a Thra- 
cian people 3 . Their name 4 appears even in Attica; 
and a harbour in Elis was called after Tantalos 5 . 

Pelops is commonly said to have gained the hand of 
Hippodameia, and the throne of Elis, by success in 
the chariot-race. Local traces of him remained. He 
was worshipped in a sanctuary hard by the temple of 
Zeus Olympios 6 ; and revered there among heroes, says 
Pausanias, as Zeus was among gods. He is the reputed 
founder or restorer of the Games who raised them to 
their historic celebrity. Another tradition brings him 

1 II. xxiv. 602. 2 II. xxiv. 611. 

3 Strabo, xii. p. 579; xiv. p. 680. * Thuc. ii. 22. 

5 Paus. V. xiii. 1-4. 6 Paus. V. xiii. 5. 



I58 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

from Olenos into Elis ; no improbable indication of his 
route from the north. Nine islands off the coast of 
Methana were called the islands of Pelops in the time 
of Pausanias 1 ; and we have already noticed in that 
quarter traces of the Achaian name. 

That the Achaians were Hellenes, and that they 
rise to pre-eminence with the Pelopids, are circum- 
stances which lead us to look for further traces of the 
connection. Now Strabo 2 seems to attach a great 
value to a tradition which he repeats, that the Achaians 
of Phthiotis came with Pelops into the Peloponnesos, oc- 
cupied Laconia, and gave it the name of Achaic Argos ; 
and subsequently, when the Achaians were driven out 
of Laconia, they drove out an Ionian race from Aigialos, 
and gave their name to that region. This account 
of the journey of the race, and of Pelops, is in accord- 
ance with the traces we have found in Homer and else- 
where of the passage of the family of Pelops towards 
the south, and with the emergence of the dynasty of 
Atreus. It is also in marked accordance with the em- 
phatic application of the Achaian name to the inhabi- 
tants of Phthie, and with the prominence that the Poet 
gives to that district in the War, through its Myrmidon 
soldiery and its illustrious chief, who are thus placed in 
near relations with Agamemnon and his adherents. 
Although we have found in many places vestiges of the 
local use of the Achaian name, this is one of only two 
where it is expressly and directly assigned to the in- 
habitants of a district as such. The other is in Crete ; 
and there no such great importance attaches to the 
statement, which exhibits them in conjunction with 
Dorians and other races. 

1 ii. 34. 2 Bk. viii. 5, p. 365. 



VI.] ON THE TITLE ' AN AX ANDRON 3 . 359 

History at this point comes in to our aid. Down to 
the late era of Poly bi us, the connection of the Achaian 
name with Phthie still subsisted. There were always 
Achaians of Phthiotis ; and in the year 205 B.C. Quin- 
tius, the Roman general, recognised the Achaians, upon 
inquiry, as a Thessalian race 1 . 

And the close relation of this race to the Pelopids 
is in no respect more clear than in this, that as they 
rose, so they fell, with that particular dynasty. In the 
post-Homeric literature, all of which follows the Dorian 
conquest, the Achaian name has ceased to be a current 
designation for the Greeks. 

We are not entitled, however, to carry the connec- 
tion backwards in time beyond Pelops. We may reckon 
with confidence that, if Tantalos had been recognised 
as a Greek, he would have been named by Homer in 
the line of the ancestry of Agamemnon. 

Yet not even the Heracleid victors in the struggle 
could afford to let slip the repute and credit of the 
Achaian sovereignty. So although Tisamenos, their 
representative in blood, had been expelled, and had 
betaken himself with his followers to Aigialos, his tomb 
in aftertimes was shown at Sparta; and hard by it the 
feast of Pheiditia was kept: with an explanatory tra- 
dition that their fathers, admonished by an oracle, had 
fetched the remains of the last Pelopid sovereign from 
their home at Helike, in Achaia. On the other hand, 
the Achaians had now set up a legendary ancestor, 
Achaios by name, whose image they professed to ex- 
hibit; and along with it they cherished a tradition, 
that the family of Tisamenos had continued to reign 
among them down to the time of Ogugos, in the third 
1 Polyb. xviii. 30-37. 



l6o JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

century before Christ, when their league was formed 
upon the basis of democratic institutions. In neither 
quarter do we see any such honour paid to the yet older 
dynasty of Danaos or of Perseus. All this seems to en- 
hance the dignity of this Achaian sovereignty, to which 
the title of anax andron was attached, as if it were 
possessed of some peculiar attribute which it had not 
received, and which it did not transmit. 

We have now examined the proper import of the- 
phrase, and its use in the case of Agamemnon. We 
have found that its groundwork does not lie either in 
his personal qualities or in his position as general-in- 
chief or as king. It appears to point backwards to a 
state of things anterior to the constitution of Achaian 
society ; which, as we find it in Homer, though imma- 
ture in its forms of administration, was profoundly 
penetrated with a political spirit, and had completely 
possessed itself of the substance of civil right, though 
not in the form of law. It suggests, then, a chieftaincy 
or hereditary superiority, older than the settlement of 
the family in its present form of power, and, whether 
founded in blood or otherwise, having reference to an 
origin in time and place beyond the limit of Greek 
history, even in that wide sense of the phrase in which 
we apply it to the chronicles of Homer. 

Let us now see what further lights can be supplied 
from the cases of the five personages who share this 
title with Agamemnon. 

II. Anchises, and III. jEneas. 

If the strong sense of nationality in Homer has led 

him everywhere to keep back from his hearers what he 

may have known or heard of a foreign origin for any 

Greek race or family, it seems plain that least of all 



VI 



.] ON THE TITLE ' ANAX ANDRON.' l6l 



would he be disposed to lift the veil in the case of a 
people whom the Greeks had conquered, and whose 
great chieftains especially he exhibits throughout in 
marked though skilfully softened and disguised in- 
feriority. 

As the Helloi are first introduced to us in the 
mountains above Thessaly, so the Dardanians appear 
in the recesses of Ida, above the Ilian plain. Dardanos 
is expressly declared to be the son of Zeus- as Aga- 
memnon may probably have been his reputed descend- 
ant. On the one side we have Zeus, with the Helloi 
for his prophets : on the other, Zeus of Ida, Zeus 
Idaios. The term anax andron applied to a father 
and his son, both living, shows the derivative and more 
than hereditary character of the title, and supports the 
hypothesis that it springs from some remote fountain- 
head. But why is it that, given both to Anchises and 
iEneas, it is not given to Priam or to any of his family ? 
Here there is opened to us a curious field of inquiry. 

Certain facts are on the face of the Poems. 

Priam 1 had, before the war, been a potentate, ex- 
celling all in that vicinity. Besides the Allies, and 
besides his own troops under the command of Hector, 
who are described in terms somewhat like those applied 
to the troops of Agamemnon in the Greek army, the 
Dardanians appear as a separate contingent • and there 
are three other military contingents 2 , one certainly, but 
perhaps all, included under the name of Troes, forming 
the third, fourth, and fifth divisions of the army. The 
King of Troy, then, probably held a position less 
powerful indeed, yet resembling that of Agamemnon 

1 II. xxv. 543-546. 2 II. ii. 224-239. 

M 



1 62 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

in having, besides his immediate subjects, various 
princes under his suzerainty. 

There was at Troy an Union or Chamber of brjfjioyi- 
povTts 1 , which occupied the same relative place as the 
(3ov\rj or Council among the Greeks. It was composed 
of royal and princely persons ; yet Anchises appears 
neither in this body, nor anywhere upon the scene of 
the poem. It is not directly stated that he was alive ; 
yet it seems to be assumed 2 . If he lived, his absence 
from the Council is remarkable, as his dominions were 
engaged in the war, and iEneas, before he came to 
Troy, had only been rescued by Poseidon from the 
hands of Achilles 3 . This prince is never spoken of as 
in possession of his inheritance. 

The sovereignty held by Anchises was the older of 
the two; for Dardania was built by Dardanos 4 , Troy 
apparently by his grandson Tros, or his great-grandson 
Ilos. Priam was the great-grandson of Tros through 
Ilos and Laomedon, Anchises through Assaracos and 
Capus. We cannot judge with certainty from this 
genealogy, the longest and most detailed in the Poems, 
whether the branch of Ilos or that of Assaracos was the 
younger. But the presumption arising out of his re- 
moval from the original seat into the plain seems to be 
against Ilos. It is true he is named before Assaracos : 
but in II. vi. 76 we have iEneas named before Hector 
by Helenos ; and here likewise he gives precedence to 
his own birth. Again, ^Eneas takes no part in the 
councils of Hector ; and his personal qualities are very 
faintly marked. Yet, like Hector, he is honoured as a 



1 II. iii. 146-148. 2 II. xx. 240. 

3 II. xx. 90-93; 128-131. 4 II. xx. 215-240. 



VI 



.] ON THE TITLE l AN AX ANDRON.' 1 63 



god 1 ; and the special protection given him by Posei- 
don marks him as a most important personage. His 
name is combined with that of Hector 2 in a way which 
almost implies a parity of military command. More- 
over, there is jealousy between him and the house of 
King Priam. He hangs on the outskirt of the battle 3 , 
and cherishes resentment, because he does not receive 
due honour from the monarch. Yet the character of 
Priam was genial and kindly. Again, iEneas is taunted 
by Achilles 4 with entertaining the hope of succeeding to 
the throne of Troy. In answer to this taunt, he utters 
no contradiction of it, but simply gives his genealogy. 
This seems very like an assertion of his title, which, 
if it existed, could only rest on seniority. 

iEneas does not thwart Hector in counsel like Polu- 
damas : so that there could be no umbrage taken on 
that ground. 

Zeus had presented Tros with certain horses, in com- 
pensation for the loss of Ganymede. These horses re- 
mained with Laomedon in the plain. But Anchises 5 
brought his mares to them surreptitiously, and got pos- 
session of the breed. And it is here that this prince is 
called anax andron, as though to say, in virtue of his 
being the lineal representative of the elder branch, he 
thus asserted his claim to the use of a gift which had 
been presented to Tros the common ancestor. 

I have said, that the import of this title seems to 
carry it back to a period anterior to the political or- 
ganisation of society which we find in Greece. Are we 
then to suppose, that it also came into the family of 

1 II. xi. 53 ; cf. v. 467. 2 II. vi. 75-77. 3 II. x. 459. 

4 II. xx. 179-183. 5 II. v. 268. 

M % 



164 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Dardanos before his settlement on Mount Ida ? I reply 
that first there is not the same cogency of reason for 
supposing it: for the relation of the Asiatic king to his 
people was far more accordant than that of the Greek 
to the idea implied in anax andron. But neither 
need it be rejected on the ground that Dardanos is the 
son of Zeus. For, in these remote ascriptions of Divine 
origin 1 to royal houses, possibly little more in substance 
is intended than is less pointedly conveyed in the pecu- 
liar and exclusive ascription to Kings of the epithets 
Diogenes, Zeus-born, and Diotrephes, Zeus-nurtured. 
Certainly they are to be distinguished from cases of 
nearer mythological parentage- and they can hardly 
mean more than something of special dignity as among 
kingly houses, or else a simple attribute of the class. 
But in truth the case of Dardanos and his family will, 
if I mistake not, be found to fall in with the general 
course of the argument. 

The use of this title is a remarkable sign of affinity 
between the Trojans and the Greeks : but here is not 
the place most convenient for examining into the 
general signs of that affinity. 

We have seen that, in the case of Anchises, the title 
anax andron is employed as if to justify him in an 
act of aggression in virtue of this dignity. Again, in 
the case of iEneas, we are told at a great crisis, c and 
now would have perished utterly the anax andron 
y£neas, had not Aphrodite perceived his plight 2 / As if 
to say, c great though he was, it would have been all 
over with him.' There will be occasion to notice in 
other cases, how pointedly this phrase is used in con- 

1 II. xx. 215. 2 II. v. 311. 



VI 



ON THE TITLE ' AN AX ANDRON.' 1 65 



nection with some striking act or crisis, and by no 
means as an otiose or merely ornamental epithet. 

IV. Augeias. 

The Elian contingent is sent to the War under four 
separate leaders; of whom one is Poluxeinos, son of 
Agasthenes. He is termed a prince or lord, and (by 
patronymic) descendant of Augeias 1 . 

In the Nestorian legend of the Eleventh Iliad, we 
are told that Neleus 2 sent to Elis a four-horsed chariot 
to contend in the Games; but Augeias, who is here 
termed anax and r on, laid hands on the horses, and 
detained them. Hence the invasion from Pulos, ef- 
fected by Achaians, under the guidance of Athene. 
Agamede, the daughter of Augeias, was profoundly 
versed in drugs 3 . And she was married to Molios, 
a descendant of Poseidon through Actor ; who re- 
sided at court, and was slain by Nestor in the Pulian 
raid 4 . 

We may justly suppose that Augeias ruled over Elis, 
because the noble Actorid family were attached to his 
court as the court of a superior. Whereas at the time 
of the Troi'ca, when the unity of the Elian State 
appears to have been broken up, the Actorids of the 
time command distinct military divisions, upon a 
footing of equality with the descendant of Augeias. 
It is probable that Elis, like Bceotia, had already un- 
dergone revolutions; and for the same cause, namely, 
its fertility. 

Other circumstances enhance the presumption of the 

1 II. ii. 615-624. 2 II. xi. 670 seqq. 

3 II. v. 741. 4 II. v. 738, 740, 741. 



1 66 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

great position and high descent of Augeias ; especially, 
his presiding over the Games. To these Games, as we 
see, the neighbouring States, some half-century before 
the war, already sent their chariots to compete. To 
these it seems probable that Thamuris 1 was on his way, 
when he met with the calamity which deprived him of 
the gift of song ; for we find he had reached the 
Alpheos, at a distance from his own country, and 
from the court of Eurutos, to which he apparently 
belonged. 

With respect to the descent of Augeias, Homer is 
silent, and we must look for the aid of general tradi- 
tion. He was reputed to be the son of Salmoneus, 
and thus a descendant of Aiolos. In this manner he 
comes within the circle of the Phoenician traditions. 
And though Aiolos is of divine descent, like Belle- 
rophon 2 , the text of the Odyssey supports this tradition 3 
(i) by giving him the epithet of a mum on, which 
appears to be used by Homer not as an epithet of cha- 
racter, but most commonly as one indicating a divine 
descent, of the same class as that of the Dardanids; 
(2) Because the name of his daughter Turo points to 
Tyre; (3) Because she is called ev-naripeia^^ an epithet 
only used in two other places 5 , and both times with 
respect to Helen, who is treated as the daughter of 
Zeus, Atos enyeyav'ia 6 . 

Tradition also places in Elis one of the ancient 
towns called Ephure. The text of Homer, without 
directly confirming the tradition, is more than pro- 



1 II. ii. 594-600. 2 II. vi. 191. 3 Od. xi. 235 seqq. 

4 'daughter of a noble sire.' 5 II. vi. 292 ; Od. xxii. 227. 

6 II. iii. 199, 418, et alibi. Cf. Od. iv. 569. 



VI.] ON THE TITLE ' ANAX ANDRON.' 1 67 

bably in accordance with it. For Odysseus visited 
Ephure to obtain poison for arrows 1 . And it was 
feared that Telemachos might pay a like visit 2 . Now 
it is certain (1) that this must have been an Ephure on 
the west coast of Greece ; therefore probably in Pelo- 
ponnesos, for intercourse does not appear to pass north- 
wards beyond the gulf of Corinth ; (2) that it could not 
be the Ephure of Sisuphos, since this to all appearance 
had now become Corinth, and is so named in the Cata- 
logue 3 . Furthermore, in both cases Ephure was a place 
where the use of drugs was studied; and in this use 
the daughter of Augeias, as we have seen, was skilled. 
We may, then, reasonably assume that Augeias dwelt 
at Ephure, though at the period of the Tro'ica the 
place was not significant enough to be named in con- 
nection with the force from Elis; but few towns 
or settlements of which, however, are recited in the 
Catalogue. 

In the case of Augeias, as of Anchises and iEneas, 
we may observe the very emphatic use of the phrase. 
The anax andron detained the mares: i.e. he kept 
the mares, as if presuming upon his dignity of anax 
andron. 



V. Euphetes. 

Euphetes is named but once by Homer. Meges, a 
Greek chieftain, is saved from the spear-stroke of 
Dolops by the stoutness of his many-layered breast- 
plate 4 , brought by his father Phuleus from Ephure, hard 



1 Od. i. 257. 2 Od. ii. 326. 

3 II. ii. 570. * II. xv. 530. 



1 68 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

by the River Selieeis, where it was given him by his 
host the anax andron Euphetes. 

Euphetes, then, is manifestly the king of Ephure : 
and is at once brought within the circle of those tra- 
ditions to which the name belongs. 

The question, over which Ephure Euphetes reigned, 
is at first sight less important than the relation estab- 
lished by the name itself. Strabo 1 reckons, besides 
Corinth, an Ephure in Elis, one in Thesprotia, one in 
Thessaly, and five others, which had fallen to the con- 
dition of mere villages. In Homer, we hear (i) of the 
Ephure of Corinth, (2) indirectly of that of Elis, (3) of 
the Ephure from which Heracles carried off" Astuocheia, 
the mother of Tlepolemos, after a destructive raid. 
This would appear to have been in Thessaly; since 
Tlepolemos comes from Rhodes, and we have other 
examples of connection between Thessaly and the 
southern islands in the persons of the descendants of 
Heracles 2 ; but none between those islands and the 
west of Peloponnesos. 

According to Strabo 3 , Euphetes was the son of 
Augeias. If so, nothing can better accord with the 
Homeric text, which makes Meges 4 the commander of 
a contingent from the coast over against Elis; which 
places him in battle at the head of the Epeian troops 5 ; 
and which states that Phuleus, his parent, had emi- 
grated on account of a feud with his own father 6 . 
Phuleus is not condemned on account of this feud, but 
on the contrary is commended as dear to Zeus. It 
was in every way fit, then, that he should con- 

1 p. 332. 2 II. ii. 676-680. 3 p. 459. 

4 II. ii. 625. 5 II. xiii. 692. 6 II. ii. 629. 



VT.] ON THE TITLE ' ANAX ANDRON. 3 1 69 

tinue to be united by the ties of guestship with the 
lord of Elis: And as to the use of the title an ax 
andron, the case of Euphetes may thus in all pro- 
bability fall under that of Augeias. It appears indeed 
possible, though I will not now venture to dwell upon 
it, that the name Ephure may of itself be a sign of 
Phoenician relations. 



VI. EUMELOS. 

Eumelos commands before Troy the forces of his 
father Admetos. The seat of his throne seems to have 
been at Pherai, a name not improbably akin to Ephure 1 . 
And here we find it holding the same relation to the 
anax andron Eumelos, as Ephure holds to two other 
bearers of the same title, namely Augeias and Euphetes. 
Further, we have seen that the name Ephure is also con- 
nected with the Aiolid line in the person of Sisuphos. 
Now we find from Homer that Alcestis the mother of 
Eumelos was the daughter of Pelias, and that Pelias 
was the spurious child of Poseidon, by Turo afterwards 
the wife of Cretheus the Aiolid: while in the male 
line, which would govern the descent, the family was 
descended from Pheres 2 , and Pheres was one of the 
legitimate sons of Cretheus. Eumelos therefore is an 
Aiolid, and as such is sprung from Zeus. 

He is mentioned six times in oblique cases, either 
of his own name or of his patronymic Pheretiades, 
and five times in the nominative ; but only once as 
anax andron 3 . This again is on the only occa- 
sion that called for the use of an emphatic phrase, 

1 II. ii. 711-715; Od. iv. 798. 2 II. ii. 763. 3 II. xxiii. 288. 



1 70 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. 

since his only conspicuous action in the Poems is 
that, being possessed of the finest horses 1 , and ex- 
celling in their management, he springs up much 
more rapidly than any other chieftain, to accept 
the challenge of the chariot-race in the Twenty-third 
Iliad 2 . 

The Homeric evidence then, gathered from various 
parts of the Poems, and slightly aided by the filling 
in of blanks from tradition, may be ' summed up as 
follows : — 

i. The employment of this phrase seems not to be 
accidental or to be meant for mere ornament; but to 
rest upon a common character attaching to those who 
bear it. 

1. It is borne only by ruling princes, or their 
heirs. 

3. But though a title of peculiar dignity, it does not 
indicate a present superiority of power or prerogative 
to other contemporary rulers. 

4. In the cases of the Dardan princes, and of Eu- 
melos, the text shows expressly that it accompanies 
descent from Zeus, at a remote date, and without the 
name of a mother. 

5. In the cases of Euphetes and Augeias, tradition 
states, and the text indirectly but strongly supports, a 
similar descent. 

6. In the case of the Pelopids, all direct indications 
fail us; but even here, Pelops, or his reputed father 
Tantalos, would appear to be a personage standing 
relatively to Greek history in much the same position 
as Aiolos, that is, as the foreign head and founder of 

1 II. ii. 763. 2 II. xxiii. 288. 



VI.] ON THE TITLE ' ANAX ANDRON. 3 171 

a ruling race; a character, which also apparently at- 
taches to Dardanos in Troas. 

7. In each and all of these cases, the ancestor ap- 
pears upon the scene of Greek tradition as already a 
prince ; and always at a period antecedent to the for- 
mation of anything like polity in Greece. 

8. It is in this attitude that we are justified in 
believing Homer presents to us those archaic charac- 
ters in Greece, whose prior history and descent were 
foreign, so that if distinctly unfolded they would have 
broken his uniform rule by representing leading ele- 
ments of Greek society and nationality as derived from 
foreign sources. 

9. The nature of the phrase anax andron, meaning 
nearly, as it does, c master of men, 5 seems to bear a 
foreign rather than a Hellenic colour, and is probably 
drawn from a state of civil society, which may be 
called either more patriarchal, or more Asiatic, than 
that of the Hellenes: a state where power was more 
absolute, and right less distinctly recognised, than they 
were respectively in the Greece of Homer. It is a 
title which, whatever be its lingering glories, has not 
in it any savour of liberty. 

10. The name is nowhere found in connection with 
Pelasgian associations ; but it attaches strongly to what 
had been all along the ruling element in Greek society 
from its first recorded formation, whether in connection 
with the Achaian or with the Phoenician name ; namely, 
a primitive chiefship or superiority, linked to something 
which, as to time and place, lay beyond the Greek hori- 
zon proper. 

11. Under these conditions, it is not difficult to see 
that the title of anax andron could not apply (for 



IJ2 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

example) to Achilles or Odysseus, whose families were 
not the representatives of these ancient sovereignties : 
or to Nestor, whose descent from Poseidon was veiled 
by spurious birth, and who was connected with Aiolos 
only in the female line : or to Sarpedon, who is directly 
affiliated to Zeus: neither do any of them, nor does 
Diomed or Ajax, stand in any relation to the character- 
istic name of Ephure, or of the Selleeis. 

12. Nor is it difficult to understand why this title 
of sovereignty and honour, alone among those em- 
ployed by Homer, passes away with him. 

We cannot say whether it was accompanied with 
any prerogatives of a substantive character, as it evi- 
dently was with a peculiar form of dignity. Those 
characters and families, who had not risen by effort 
and degree, of whom no human memory bore record 
that they had at any period been less than the leaders 
and the lords of men, and whose names were associated 
with the earliest guidance lent to Greece in her first 
struggles for civilisation, might well remain as bright 
luminaries adorning the past of the race, until either 
a great lapse of time, or, more probably, a breaking up 
of the social and political system they had taken a lead 
in creating, should bring about their extinction. And 
it is change of this kind, on the brink of which Homer 
leaves us, as he disappears from us in the distance. In 
soft music, he sings out the heroic age of heroes : and 
after him, as Hesiod tells us, a ruder and a darker 
age is sung in with a wilder music. The traditions, 
and the families, of the older time are submerged 
by the flood of Dorian conquest. The noble and 
refined Achaian succumbs to the half-savage Hera- 
clid. The Hellenic world is resolved into a chaos. 



VI.] ON THE TITLE ' AN AX ANDRON.' 1 73 

which devours its ancient ideas and institutions : 
though the spirit of life still breathes over the form- 
less mass, and gradually moulds it into a new and 
more organised and splendid, if not a more pure and 
healthful civilisation. 



CHAPTER VII. 



The Olympian System. 



Homer was the maker not only of Poems ; but also, 
in a degree never equalled by any other poet, 

i. Of a language , 
1. Of a nation ; 
3. Of a religion. 

The common tradition of Greece recognised the poets, 
as having had a large share in the formation of the 
religion of the country. These poets were in particular 
Homer and Hesiod, as represented by the works as- 
cribed to them. But the difference is immense between 
the work performed by the author of the Iliad and 
Odyssey, and the author of the Theogony respectively. 
The latter, at a date very early without doubt, though 
sensibly later than that of Homer, placed upon record, 
and arranged, the mythological legends of the por- 
tion of country, supposed to have been Bceotia, within 
which he lived ; and the late position, given in the 
poem to the gods of the Olympian dynasty, is in ac- 
cordance with all the indications of the Homeric pro- 
ductions. But the mythology of Homer, instead of 



THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM, 1 75 

being a chronicle or a catalogue, is a supreme work of 
art, that lives, breathes, and moves, like the metallic 
statues of his own Hephaistos. And it is precisely the 
contrast between this wonderful performance and the 
Theogony of Hesiod, which enables us to conceive in 
some degree the immense power with which the ima- 
gination of Homer operated in shaping the characters 
of the Olympian gods, in adjusting their relations to 
one another, and in fixing the conditions of their go- 
vernment of the world, and of their intercourse with 
the children of men. On these great matters, a poem 
like that of Hesiod could have no other influence, than 
a register of births and deaths could have upon the 
social and political fortunes of a community. 

In the supernatural world of Homer, we find deities 
not only of different ranks and attributes, but marked 
with very great varieties of moral character and tone ; 
bearing marks of connection with different places, 
countries, races of men, and celestial dynasties, or 
theogonies, with very different degrees of respect paid 
to them; and these again varying with races of men 
and local situations. 

At the same time, these beings have a head, a central 
place of habitation, a system and polity among them- 
selves ; to which, however, the various members of the 
supernatural order are very variously related. 

In a word, we appear to see a great mass of hete- 
rogeneous materials having reference to the unseen 
world, which, as they were probably settling down in 
the world of fact, from their recent contact, into more 
stable and normal relations, so, in the world of poetry, 
they receive from the hand of the master an unity 
fitting them to constitute that intellectual and ideal 



1>]6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

whole, which we know as the Hellenic religion. In 
this process of construction, the actual belief, tradi- 
tions, and tendencies of the people could not but be 
the chief determining force. But the potent mind and 
imagination of the Poet, in all likelihood, exercised 
an influence in modifying the stages and fixing the 
consummation of the process, which, if secondary and 
subsidiary only with reference to the powers before 
mentioned, may still be justly supposed to have been 
far greater than any ever wielded by any other Greek, 
whether legislator, poet, or philosopher. 

There is nothing contrary to reason in the suppo- 
sition that the condition of religion in Greece, at the 
epoch of Homer's existence, may have offered remark- 
able opportunities for the formative influence even of 
an individual mind. 

In a nation of one blood, which claims to be au- 
tochthonous or indigenous, because, since first the mi- 
gration of the primitive tribe was arrested, it has never 
changed its seat, we may look for a religion based upon 
the predominance of some single idea, and invested 
with great uniformity of colour. 

But where, as in Greece, the nation itself is com- 
pounded out of a variety of factors, the religion will 
naturally assume a variegated aspect. 

Each race or family of immigrants arrives cum Pe- 
natibus et magnis Du i brings with it its own con- 
ceptions and names of deity. These they set down 
for themselves upon ground already occupied by the 
religion of the former inhabitants, and by their tra- 
ditional conceptions. These conceptions will be in 
many cases representatives of the same original ideas ; 
and though diversely modified, after the separation of 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 77 

the races, according to the genius and associations of 
each branch, they will often claim the same attributes, 
and the respective worships will tend to compete and 
even clash together. 

Of this clashing we find the mark in Homer, when 
two deities have the same function. Thus Athene is 
even more supreme over war than Ares. A Paieon 
has to do with healing as well as Apollo. Poseidon is 
god of the sea • but beneath him, yet in independence 
of him, is Nereus, inhabiting the depths ; and the sea 
is affected by the agency of Zeus, or Here, or Athene ] , 
or Apollo, with respect to breeze, and storm, and ship- 
wreck, as well as by his own agency. 

The same kind of competition is represented in 
Homer by the deposition, and relegation to a distance, 
of the older gods of the Nature-system, and by the 
legends of the youth, or infancy, of Hephaistos and 
Dionusos. 

Also this conflict of religions, growing out of the 
relations and conflicts of races, is powerfully exhibited 
in Homer by the division of Olympos into two factions 
during the Trojan War, and by the bold and effective, 
if to us incongruous, conception of the Theomachy, or 
Battle of the gods. 

In the later tradition, this clashing comes to be 
represented by the legends of contests between two 
deities for a given territory. Poseidon contends with 
Helios (the Sun) for Corinth; and with Athene for 
Athens. A variety of other cases may be cited. 

Had the Poet worked up his mythological scheme 
out of Greek materials alone, we may be sure that the 
relations of subordination among the gods would have 

1 Od. v. io8, 109. 

N 



178 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

been at least as well defined, as those subsisting among 
the leaders of the army, or perhaps even the members 
of a well-ordered family. Whereas now we find first 
that Okeanos, as the head of an older though superseded 
dynasty, stands aloof, and is exempt from attendance 
at the Olympian court 1 ; and that the position of Zeus 
among its members reminds us of the position of the 
kings of France before Louis XI among their great 
feudatories. Poseidon, even singly, is not without pre- 
tensions to an equality of force : Athene, without pro- 
ceeding to physical resistance, does not hesitate to 
oppose in debate, as well as in veiled action, the 
councils of her father : and a combination of these two 
with Here had once proved too much for his solitary 
strength. 

When the various worships thus met in competition 
on the same soil, the result could not but be, either 
that the objects of them were amalgamated ; or that 
some of them were expelled ; or that by division of 
functions, that is a compromise, their differences were 
adjusted. 

Of amalgamation we observe an example in the first 
deity of the Homeric poems. The Zeus of Dodona, 
and of the Pelasgians, becomes also the Zeus of the 
Hellic tribes. 

Of permanent expulsion we have examples in the 
Okeanos, and also in the Kronos, of Homer, with their 
followings respectively. 

Of the resistance to a new worship, and of its tem- 
porary exile, we have an instance in the driving of 
Dionusos into the sea by Lukourgos. 

But the great principle of the Homeric mythology 

1 II. xx. 7. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 79 

is, adjustment by distribution of offices. And the an- 
thropomorphic idea greatly favoured the application of 
this principle ; since it gave to the Poet all the varied 
functions and orders of humane society, both domestic 
and political, as a framework after which to arrange 
his Olympian personages. 

And thus it is that Homer, from living in the midst 
of an intermixture and fusion of bloods continually 
proceeding in Greece, acquired a vast command of 
materials, and by his skilful use of them exercised an 
immense influence in the construction of the Greek 
religion. 

It became with him, what it probably had never been 
before, and what it was not in the works of any later 
writer, a most gorgeous and imposing, and even in a 
certain sense a highly self-consistent, whole : contain- 
ing in itself, without doubt, many weak and many 
tarnished elements, but yet serving in an important 
degree the purpose of a religion to control the passions 
and acts of men. 

The Olympian system of Homer is eminently what 
Horace describes as 

' Speciosa locis, morataque rccte 
Fabula.' 

It is wrought out with pains and care, full of character 
and individuality, marvellous alike in the grandeur 
and the weaknesses of its personages — a work, in the 
very highest sense that is applicable to any human pro- 
duction, of true and vast creative power. 

Even without the attestation of Plato, we might 
have been able to judge that it was in all likelihood a 
main instrument in establishing the dominant features 
of the Hellenic religion, such as we know them from 

N % 



l8o JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the historic ages. Partly it reduced to unity the com- 
peting elements of the true Hellenic tradition, of the 
old Pelasgian Nature-worship, and of the Phoenician, 
Syrian, and Egyptian mythologies : partly it cast them 
into the shade of local, as opposed to national, devotion. 
In the poems of Hesiod, it appears to us as the latest 
form of Greek religion ; but, more artfully compacted 
than the rest, it acquired and retained a real supremacy 
among them, although the diversity of aspect never was 
effaced. 

Yet its character continually altered; and altered 
for the worse. It has features which are sublime, and 
features which are debased. But the sublime features 
of the Olympian characters became, with the lapse of 
generations, less and less observable. The debased ones 
grew more and more prominent. And the profoundly 
interesting specialties of the several deities, indi- 
cating their respective origins, at length became ap- 
parently imperceptible even to the Greeks themselves. 
No one can closely and carefully examine the system 
of Homer without a deep interest : no one can find 
much ground for such an interest in the theological 
part of the religion of the historic period. Only its 
ethical ideas, and the highly poetic ideas connected 
with destiny, retain any attractive power; and from 
the mythology these ideas are, in the later stages of the 
Olympian system, almost wholly dissociated. 

The wonder indeed is, not that the Olympian 
religion should have failed to resist the corrosion 
of change, but that it should have been able in any 
manner to retain its identity. Devoid as it was of 
all authority, and even of the allegation of authority, 
for its origin, and not only unsustained, but belied. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. l8l 

by the witness of surrounding nations, it probably had 
little else of unity than such as it derived from the 
great Bard of the nation, and from its imaginative 
splendour; while it had none of the guarantees, real 
even if partial, which are afforded either by Books 
known and recognised as sacred, or by a compact and 
permanent hierarchy, dating, or professing to date, 
from the beginning of the system. If the Homeric 
poems stood in the place of the former, yet- we can 
perceive for them no avenue to the mind and heart 
of man, except that of the poet, and the delight he 
gives ; 

rj Kai Oecnriv dotfibv 6 kcv repirriviv deldcov 1 . 

And as respects the latter, neither was the priest, as 
such, a significant personage in Greece at any period, 
nor had the priest of any one place or deity, so far as 
we know, any organic connection with the priest of 
any other ; so that if there were priests, yet there was 
not a priesthood. Its strength lay, then, in its beauty ; 
a beauty which, surviving the death of the subject in 
which it resided, had power to ravish the mind of 
Goethe, one among the greatest of modern poets ; and 
probably we could not name in all human experience 
a more signal instance of the vast power of the imagi- 
nation, than is to be found in the long life, and the 
extended influences, of the Greek religion. 

It found a way to the mind of man through his 
sympathies and propensities. Homer reflected upon 
his Olympos the ideas, passions and appetites known 
to us all, with such a force, that they became with 
him the paramount power in the construction of the 
Greek religion. This humanitarian element gradually 
1 Od. xvii. 385. 



1 82 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

subdued to itself all that it found in Greece of tra- 
ditions already recognised, whether primitive or modern, 
whether Hellenic, Pelasgian, or foreign. The govern- 
ing idea of the character of deity in Homer is a nature 
essentially human, with the addition of unmeasured 
power. It is at once obvious, then, that the elements 
of a profound corruption abound in his Olympian 
Court, although they affect very variously the personages 
who fill it. And the principle upon which it is con- 
structed makes but too copious a provision for further 
deterioration. 

Such accordingly was the actual working of that 
Hellenic Theo-mythology, of which we must regard 
Homer as the great founder. With the progress of 
time it became more and more debased, and the dis- 
tinctions originally perceptible among its elements 
being worn away, it likewise fell into such a state of 
complexity as approached to chaos. 

But, while the popular creed thus degenerated, the 
intelligence and the speculative mind of the Greeks 
became more and more estranged from it. With the 
lapse of time we must learn to regard it, not as in 
Homer, under a single aspect, but under three : as a 
religion of philosophers, a religion of legislators, and a 
religion of the people. By the philosophers, the ab- 
stract idea of deity was greatly purified and reformed ; 
but the sense of personality connected with it became 
feebler and more remote. In Aristotle, the most pro- 
found and powerful mind of Greece in the classical 
ages, as well as perhaps among the purest which the 
country produced, it is reduced, as a practical principle, 
to zero. Still, the lofty sentiments, thus elaborated 
in the abstract, again acquired much of the warmth of 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 83 

life in the writings of some at least of the dramatic 
poets ; and may thus have exercised influence in a wider 
sphere than that supplied to the few by the thoughtful 
studies of the Schools. 

Meantime the mythology, with its constant develop- 
ment and deterioration, continued to be accepted by 
the people ; while with a view, as must be supposed, 
to public order, all its institutions had the steady coun- 
tenance of the ruling authorities. 

It may then be believed that there resided among 
men, six, eight, or ten centuries after Homer, a much 
purer intellectual conception of deity than can be 
collected from his poems • while, as a first necessity of 
wealth and civilisation, a defined but narrow morality 
of property, so to call it, arose ; both in a form more 
determinate than any known to the Poet, and also sus- 
tained by the machinery of law and public policy. 

But, notwithstanding all this, a great real declension 
in other, and perhaps yet graver, respects had taken 
place. For the mass of the population, the abuses and 
corruptions of the older creed c did not pass, but grew.' 
Not perhaps against society, which had learned to take 
care of itself, but against the unseen Ruler of the 
world, and against the sanctity of human nature, sins 
and loathsome abominations had come in, and were 
flourishing in a rank and foul luxuriance, which seem to 
have been unknown to the Greece of Homer. For the 
religion of his day had not ceased to be a power. 
Variously and imperfectly, but truly, men were com- 
manded and restrained by it. It presented a system of 
rewards and punishments, intelligible to its votaries, 
and operative, as it appears, to no small extent upon 
human conduct. And whatever may have been, as it is 



184 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

represented, the personal practice of the Homeric 
deities, their system of government was addressed in 
the main to good ends. It exhibited, generally speak- 
ing, though in an imperfect, yet in a real manner, 
superior power, armed and active on behalf of truth, 
justice, and humanity. This could not but be an 
engine of great good. That it was so, we may learn 
from a tone of general character, which certainly did 
not afterwards improve, and from the absence of the 
horrors already named, which afterwards abounded 
even in the more refined regions and in the educated 
classes of society. 

It may seem strange that the two processes of a 
speculative ascent and a practical decline, a mental 
discipline of the few and a general dissoluteness of 
life, should be simultaneous. But so it was, even to 
the day of the last dying throes of paganism. Never 
was the heathen creed, on its intellectual side, in 
a condition so sublimated, as when it perished under 
the blows of the Christian apologists and the influence 
of the Church. But also, never had its practical power, 
as a religious system elevating or constraining action, 
fallen so low, as in the days when its votaries were 
habitually content to deify even monsters in human 
shape, if they wore the imperial purple. 

To say, then, simplicher, either that the Greek re- 
ligion as it grew old improved, or that it degenerated, 
would be to use equivocal and misleading language. 
By its side, and never in any degree taking its place in 
the minds of the many, there grew up a speculation, 
which was hardly a belief, but which put aside a mass 
of fables, and in many points approximated to the 
truth, concerning the nature of God. But as a living 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 85 

creed it worsened; and as an instrument for the 
government of conduct, it more and more lost its 
power. 

The reproaches of Plato against Homer, for the un- 
worthy treatment of the gods, can have little influence 
on our minds in the light of such knowledge as we now 
possess. It would appear, from the Cratylus for ex- 
ample, that Plato had little knowledge of the origin of 
the Hellenic mythology ; and the personages, who filled 
the chief places in it, had in his day assumed a same- 
ness of colour and position, which they had not in the 
time of Homer. In order to comprehend the method 
of the Poet, we must bear in mind (1) that many deities, 
afterwards completely naturalised, were in his day only 
making the first steps of their way into Greece ; (2) that 
deity is with him a most elastic idea, susceptible of in- 
finite diversities, in point both of virtue and of power ; 
(3) that he has a vivid conception of intercommunion 
between the two natures, divine and human, which was 
probably lost in the time of Plato. 

If Ares and Aphrodite are exhibited by Homer in 
lights which are even ridiculous, we have to observe 
that nothing can be more profound, more entire, than 
the reverence of his mortals for Apollo and Athene, nay 
often for Poseidon and Here. This difference is not 
casual ; it is in the whole manner of treatment : and 
what we seem to learn from it is, that, among the Hel- 
lenes of his time, Ares and Aphrodite had as yet no 
regular recognition, no established worship. There is 
not a single indication of either in the Poems j though 
it appears from them that these deities were worshipped 
in Thrace and in Cyprus respectively. 

Apart from this, Homer's system of thought included 



1 86 JUVENTUS MUNLI. [CHAP. 

a number of beings, whom he calls divine, but in whom 
the divine attributes are minimised. The Gigantes, 
who rushed to their own ruin- the Kuklopes, who ex- 
hibit a perfectly brutalised humanity ; the Phaiakes, 
who in all manly qualities are represented as much 
below the Greek level; all these were kinsfolk of the 
gods. 

A slight circumstance shows us how, in Homer, the 
divine idea could be reduced to the smallest dimensions 
of power. When the comrades of Odysseus ate the 
oxen of the Sun, Lampetie, his daughter by Neaira, ex- 
pressly called a goddess 1 , carried the news of the deed 
to her father. Obviously, then, she had not herself 
sufficient power to prevent or punish this offence, 
committed by a mere handful of exhausted mariners. 
Neither could the Sun, who is called all -beholding, see 
the act from his pathway in the heavens, without her 
intervention as a messenger. 

The principal materials of religion which Homer 
found ready to his hand were, so far as appears, sup- 
plied by 

i. The Pelasgian or other archaic races, which had 
had possession of the Peninsula prior to the Hel- 
lenes. 

2. The Hellic families and tribes. 

3. The Phoenician immigration. 

4. An Egyptian and oriental influence which we 
trace {a) in obscure traditions, and (b) in the actual 
remains of a worship clearly proceeding from this 
origin, which endured down to the time of Pausanias. 
This was probably brought to Greece through the Phoe- 
nician vehicle. 

1 Od. xii. 131-133. 






VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 87 

The Zeus of Homer is equally Pelasgian and Hel- 
lenic. 

The Apollo, the Athene, and the Here appear to 
belong especially to Hellenic traditions. But the two 
first carry marks, which can hardly be mistaken, of an 
affinity, probably dating from a very early period, to the 
Hebrew traditions, recorded in the sacred Scriptures. 

The Poseidon of Homer is manifestly Phoenician. 
This deity waives as it were his supremacy on coming 
into Greece, in deference to the paramount force of 
the religion of the major number, and to the ruling in- 
fluences. Yet the character and worship of Poseidon 
may occasionally in Greece, as well as elsewhere, have 
been preserved under the name of Zeus. 

These five are the five great deities of the Poems. 
But it may be convenient to consider first the mode 
which Homer has devised for dealing with the elder 
gods. 

It is in a far-distant perspective that he places the 
Elemental or Nature powers ; which are thus removed 
from inconvenient contact with the actual governors of 
the world, and yet are subjected to no indignity. 

At the head of these is Okeanos; whom Homer 
regards as the source (not the father, that title being 
reserved for Zeus) of all the gods. He is not invested 
with anthropomorphic attributes, a circumstance which 
indicates the distinctness of the race which had wor- 
shipped him. But Homer, paying a marked respect to 
his dignity, does not summon him to the great Olym- 
pian Assembly of the Twentieth Book 1 , where, if he 
had appeared, he must have been second to Zeus. It is 

1 II. xx. 7. 



1 88 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

possible even that the relations of this deity to man- 
kind were. pre-Pelasgic ; as Zeus appears to have been 
in the Pelasgian system, and Okeanos could hardly have 
been there except as its head. 

In no case is the Homeric treatment more artful, 
than in that of the sea- or water-god Nereus. He is 
completely invested with the anthropomorphic cha- 
racter- for he is blessed with an abundant progeny of 
daughters. But his place was wanted for Poseidon: 
he is therefore confined to the sea-deep; and he is in 
no manner or degree an object of worship in the 
Poems. 

While the Olympian system generally is to be re- 
garded as alien to elemental worship, and as founded 
on a different basis, it is important to trace never- 
theless such vestiges of the elder religion as are to be 
found among the Greeks of Homer. 

i. In the Pact of the Third Iliad, the original terms 
were 1 that the Greeks should offer a lamb to Zeus; the 
Trojans two, the one black, the other white, to Gaia 
and Helios, the Earth and the Sun. This appears to 
draw the line pretty clearly between some leading ideas 
of the worship of the two countries ; which nevertheless 
had, as is plain, many points of contact. 

When we come to the actual Invocation, Agamem- 
non officiates on behalf of both parties 2 . Accordingly 
he first invokes Zeus (but as ruling from Ida); then 
the all-seeing, all-hearing Helios ; and then he inserts, 
before Gaia, the Rivers ; and he adds the deities (with- 
out naming them) who dwell beneath, and who punish 
perjurers in the Future State, or Underworld. 

1 II. iii. 103. 2 II. iii. 276-280. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 89 

2. In the Nineteenth Iliad we have an oath and 
Invocation purely Greek 1 ; and on comparing it with 
the former we find 

a. That Zeus is invoked without any mention of 
Ida. 

b. The Earth is next named. 

c. The Sun is invoked without any special words of 
personification. 

d. The Erinues, strictly ethical personages, are named 
as the deities below, unnamed in the previous Invo- 
cation. 

e. The Rivers do not appear. 

3. We also have, in the Ninth Iliad, another impre- 
catory Invocation; that of Althaia, mother of Mele- 
agros. She addresses herself to (a) the Earth, (b) A'ido- 
neus, and (c) Persephone : and her prayer is heard, and 
evidently granted as well as heard, by the air-stalking 
Erinus. The offence here was not perjury, but the 
slaying of her brother by her son. 

We thus perceive, from the first Invocation, either 
that the Earth and Sun stood to the Trojans as Zeus 
did to the Greeks, or that, when all were to be ad- 
dressed, the Earth and Sun fell to the Trojans from 
some greater affinity to their creed. But when we 
come to an Invocation affecting the Greeks alone, in 
the Nineteenth Book, the Sun is less prominently 
named, and the purely ethical element is introduced 
in the Erinues, avengers of perjury in the nether 
world. 

In the mixed Invocation the Erinues are not named, 
but are evidently the personages glanced at as avengers 
beneath the earth and after death. 

1 II. xix. 258-260. 



I90 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

We also find it clearly established by these passages, 
that the Nature-gods in general were treated by Homer 
as subterranean : though this did not absolutely and 
invariably exclude them from the Olympian family. 
And the office generally assigned to them is not a 
share in the ordinary government of the world, but is 
the infliction of punishment, both for perjury and also 
for other offences, in a future itate. 

Hence it is that Achilles, a lock of whose hair had 
been promised by his father Peleus to be dedicated to 
the River Spercheios on his return home, deposits such 
a lock, at the time when he knows he shall not return 
home at all, in the hands of the dead Patroclos; that 
his spirit may carry it to the River-god, in the Under- 
world 1 . Here we have the clearest evidence that the 
Underworld, into which Patroclos was about to find 
entrance, was the ordinary residence of the River- 
gods. 

Nor is this the only case of River-worship in the 
Poems. The Pulians in the Epeian even sacrificed a 
bull to Alpheios 2 , when they reached his banks; and 
Odysseus likewise invokes the unnamed River of 
Scherie, at whose mouth he touches the shore 3 . These 
two, it will be observed, were plainly acts of worship 
with reference to some immediate result, and implied 
the exercise by the Rivers respectively of some present 
prerogatives. On the other hand we may notice their 
strictly local character, as well as that of the act done 
by Achilles. 

To the great Olympian Assembly of the Twentieth 
Book, which is to prepare the way for a decisive issue 

1 II. xxiii. 144-151. 2 II. xi. 728. 3 Od. v. 445. 



VII 



.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 191 



to the war, Themis summons the Rivers (except old 
Okeanos) and the Nymphs who frequent or inhabit the 
groves and fountains. These latter, both here and 
elsewhere, are evidently conceived under the condi- 
tions of the human form. A like process had been 
begun with the Rivers ; because Poseidon 1 accom- 
plishes his purpose with Turo in the form of the River 
Enipeus. Others, too, of the Rivers have human sons. 
Nay, they even sate on the burnished chairs of the 
Olympian Hall 2 . 

Nor let it be thought strange, that while the worship 
(except for imprecation) of the greater deities of the 
old Pelasgian system had been superseded, that of 
smaller ones had thus survived. For the Dii majores 
of that system, by reason of their very greatness, had 
no one exclusive residence. But the River-worship 
was strictly local; and it is the nature of this local 
worship, in whatever age, and in connection with 
whatever creed, to take a deep hold, and live a tena- 
cious life. Of this there can be no stronger proof 
than the great number of temples recorded in Pausanias 
as having been erected in honour of deities, whose 
existence is hardly traceable in the public and national 
religion of historic Greece. Just so it was that the 
heathen system, when it was slowly and reluctantly 
yielding its ground to Christianity, lingered long in 
the villages and remoter districts, and thus gave us, as 
if by caprice, the singular name of Paganism for the 
religion, which had blazed with such extraordinary 
splendour in the Forum of Rome, and on the Acropolis 
of Athens. 

1 Od. xi. 241. 2 II. xx. 11. 



I92 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

There is another form of relation between the older 
and the younger scheme. "While the anthropomorphic 
spirit of the Olympian religion repels the counter- 
system of elemental worship, it nevertheless appro- 
priates its materials, and even exhibits occasionally 
traces of its form. Thus, while the air- or sky-god 
becomes Zeus, the rainbow becomes Iris : and, as the 
rainbow in nature belongs strictly and exclusively to 
the sky-region, so Iris remains in the closest adhe- 
rence to Zeus. She is his messenger, not the mes- 
senger of the gods in general ; and even when he sits 
on Ida, she is in attendance on him, and available 
for a mission 1 . And as we may suppose that Ida was 
the habitual resort of Zeus when the armies were on 
the field, we can thus understand, not only why it is Iris 
who informs the Trojans about the Greek array 2 , but 
how she is at hand to prompt Helen's going to the 
Wall 3 , and to take Aphrodite out of the turmoil, and 
drive her, in the chariot of Ares, to Olympos 4 . 

In like manner, Here appears to be constructed out 
of the old traditions which treated the Earth as a 
divine power : Demeter from a like source : and He- 
phaistos from an elemental god of fire. 

If the local cultus thus survived in fact long after 
the central system had been eclipsed and superseded 
by one founded on ideas of greater vigour and eleva- 
tion, then Homer, who of course had to exercise his 
plastic powers as a poet upon traditions which he 
found ready to hand, could not wholly extinguish the 
representation of these minor nature-powers in his 
Olympian system. And the ultimate form of recon- 

1 II. viii. 399. 2 II. ii. 786. 

3 II. iii. 121. 4 II, v. 353-369. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 93 

ciliation for the two systems was not in the ejection 
of the minor powers, but in the establishment of their 
assumption of human form, and with it the presidency- 
over the object in which they at first inhered, as the 
condition of enlistment, so to speak, in the popular 
religion. Such was the basis of compromise, so to call it, 
which secured to Rivers, Fountains, Hills, and Woods, in 
each case their proper place in the Olympian system. 

To obtain a right view of its nature, the Homeric 
mythology must be carefully severed, not only from the 
bygone schemes of Nature-worship, but likewise from 
(i) the Roman mythology, and (2) the mythology of 
classical Greece ; from this classical system even as we 
have it in the poets, and much more as we draw it 
from the later writers. 

We then find that the Homeric formation consists 
of a Polity, framed on the human model, with a king, 
an aristocracy, and even a people or multitude; and 
that its seat is on Olympos. The king is Zeus. The 
aristocracy consists of a number not precisely defined. 
Somewhere about eight or ten deities take actual part 
in the debates of Olympos. The ordinary meetings 
are strictly analagous to those of the fiovXri or council 
of the Greek army. But, like that council, the Olym- 
pian court has its silent members: and as Hephaistos 
prepared for it twenty chairs 1 or thrones, we must 
suppose this to have been the approximate number of 
those who were entitled to attend. This is the body, 
of which the feastings are so gorgeously described - y 
and in it are, probably, included all the deities, who 
had obtained more than a narrowly local recognition 
in the Greece of Homer. 

1 II. xviii. 373. 
o 



194 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

But sometimes the gods meet in (ayopj]) their As- 
sembly 1 . Homer appears to use this phrase on occa- 
sions when a great resolution is about to be taken. 
The Assembly of the Fourth Book defeats the Pact of 
the Third, and brings the Greeks into the field against 
the Trojans during the isolation of Achilles. That of the 
Eighth is designed to insure the absence of their potent 
patrons from the field of battle. Greatest of all, the 
Assembly of the Twentieth Book is brought together 
by a wider summons, including Nymphs and Rivers. 
This Assembly removes the embargo, and by permitting 
the battle of the gods, forecasts the corresponding vic- 
tory of the stronger party upon earth. 

In the members of the Olympian Court itself we dis- 
cern every kind of heterogeneity. There seems to be 
scarcely a single definite feature that they possess in 
common : only we may assert that every one of them 
has a preternatural superiority to man in some one or 
more particulars, while a few approximate to divine 
perfections. 

They seem, indeed, in no case to be liable to total and 
final extinction 2 . Yet Ares, having fled from Diomed, 
declares, not only that he might have remained sense- 
less under the blows of the warrior, but might have 
suffered (brjpbv) indefinitely long, left among the slain. 
And the gods may be deposed from Olympos, as Zeus 
says he would have deposed Ares, if born from any 
other divine sire than himself. 

In the Fifteenth Iliad, Poseidon appears to be threat- 
ened with Tartaros, as the consequence of the for- 
midable conflict between Zeus and himself, which had 
seemed so imminent. The gods beneath, says Zeus, 

1 II. iv. i ; viii. 2 ; xx. 4. 2 II. v. 901. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 95 

who form the Court of Kronos, would have become 
right well acquainted with the battle. As those gods 
are wholly cut off from Olympian action, this could 
only have been, as it seems, if Zeus had placed Posei- 
don where he had already placed Kronos 1 . Even Here 
and Athene may suffer wounds, from which ten whole 
years will not suffice for their recovery 2 . And if they 
had persisted in the second descent, then, smitten by 
the thunderbolt, they would not have been again ad- 
mitted to Olympos 3 . 

The same notion of right which binds men together, 
prevails among the gods, but may be set at nought by 
them 4 . The happiness of Olympian Immoitals is liable 
to be impaired and disturbed by quarrels on account of 
their partialities to men this way or that, as the hap- 
piness of men would be disturbed 5 . The community 
of gods is no less emphatically humanised, than are 
the individuals. The relations of its members to one 
another are, however, but partially defined, and are 
subject to contingency. 

Hardly any two deities are of the same dignity ; and 
even when they discharge the same function, they do 
it under different conditions. Thus Athene and Ares 
are the deities of war 6 . Ares fights with his own hand 
against a mortal : his opponent Athene does not deign 
to enter into conflict herself ; she incites 7 the mind, 
drives 8 the chariot, but only against a god, and impels 
or diverts the weapon 9 . 

While however Athene thus behaves in relation to 
Ares, we have no similar example in the action of the 

1 II. xv. 221-228. 2 II. viii. 404. 3 II. viii. 455. 

4 II. v. 761. 5 II. i. 573-576 ; v. 383, 384, and 873, 874. 

6 II. v. 430. 7 Il.v. 200. 8 Il.v.8 4 o. 9 II. v. 290,856. 

O % 



195 - JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Poems, of matters carried to extremity in the upper rank 
of the Olympian Court. On the contrary, the highest 
deities of Homer are bound together by a law of mutual 
respect, even when they take opposite sides of a question 
or a quarrel, and they show the utmost anxiety to avoid 
carrying their differences to issue. After all, is it not 
a folly, they commonly say, to diminish our own happi- 
ness on account of beings so inferior to ourselves ? 

See the language of Zeus to Athene, II. viii. 39 ; 

Of Zeus about Poseidon, II. xv. 226-228; 

Of Apollo to Poseidon, II. xxi. 462-467 ; 

Of Here about Zeus, II. viii. 427-431 j 

Of Athene about Poseidon, Od. xiii. 341-343 ; 

And, although Hermes is a god of lower stamp, 
of Hermes to Leto, II. xxi. 498. 
Again, with a great delicacy, Homer never allows 
any of the higher deities to be named to mortals as 
being in conflict one with another. Thus when Diomed 
ascribes to Apollo the escape of Hector, and makes 
an appeal for himself to divine aid 1 , he does not, as 
on other occasions (e. g. II. x. 284), name Athene as 
his protectress, but says, 

' If perchance I too may have a god for my ally.' 

So Poseidon, in the form of Calchas, urging on the two 
Aiantes, and referring to Hector as claiming to be 
the son of Zeus, and as perhaps having his aid 2 , sug- 
gests that c some one of the gods' might help one of 
them to make an effectual resistance. In reply, the 
Oilean Ajax observes that the pretended Calchas is 
some one of the gods of Olympos 3 . Thus no deity is 
placed by name in opposition to Zeus. 

1 II. xi. 362-366. 2 II. xiii. 54-58. 3 II. xiii. 68. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 97 

And thus it is contrived, that Poseidon shall retire 
from the field (II. xv. 218) before Apollo arrives there 
to renovate Hector (239). 

In the Seventeenth Book, when Athene 1 appears, that 
she may give effect to the altered policy of Zeus, 
Apollo does not absolutely retire, but the agency of 
the two is so directed as to avoid collision. For when 
Athene has incited Menelaos, and Apollo then kindles 
Hector, the two warriors do not meet in fight. Once 
more, when Achilles (II. xx. 450) recognises the fact 
that Apollo has carried off Hector, he expresses a hope 
that rh Ot&v may aid him too. In a word, the greater 
gods of Homer never are brought into conflict, nor 
do they exhibit their differences within the human 
sphere. 

In Book xx, Here consults Poseidon and Athene 
(v. 115) as to the mode of counteracting the agency 
of Apollo, who is accompanying iEneas against 
Achilles. c Let us,' she says, c force him back : and 
then some one of us can go to attend Achilles' (119- 
121). Poseidon, in his reply, is unwilling to bring 
gods into conflict, c unless Ares or Apollo should begin, 
or should hinder Achilles' (132-143) in his work of 
havoc. 

And when, finally, Zeus exhibits the golden scales 
in the air, that which holds the fate of Hector sinks 
to Hades, and thereupon Apollo quits him. It is then 
only that Athene, who was at hand and ready (see 
v. 187), joins and accompanies Achilles 2 . 

But this mutual respect is only one among many 
notes of difference, which separate the orders of deity 
in the Olympian Court. 

1 II. xvii. 544* 2 II. xxii, 208-214. 



I98 - JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

The Olympian personages of Homer may be divided 
into several classes, in several respects. 

Firstly. We may consider them as background and 
foreground personages. The background personages 
are little heard of, and scarcely affect the machinery 
of government for the Homeric world. Such are De- 
meter, Themis, Leto, Dione, Hebe; such are the 
Muses, and the Charites or Graces; independently of 
the Nature-powers, who are summoned to Olympos on 
great and special occasions, but who take no active part 
in superintending human affairs at large. 

Secondly. The foreground personages may be divided 
into those of higher and of lower power. 

Of higher power we have only Zeus, Here, Poseidon, 
Athene, and Apollo. 

Thirdly. The Olympian deities may again be divided 
into two classes, of the higher and the lower 7700s, or 
moral tone, respectively. The three first divinities are 
of the lower, and the two last of the higher, in regard 
to all those matters which pertain to the morality and 
to the infirmity, or aKpavia, of man. 

Zeus, in his Olympian personality, stands with the 
class to which Here and Poseidon belong; while, as 
the traditional representative of providence and the 
Theistic idea, he ranks more justly with Athene and 
Apollo. 

Of the class lower both in power, and in moral tone, 
we have Hephaistos, Ares, Hermes, Aphrodite. 

All, except the highest gods, in Homer may be said 
generally to be subject to the following limitations and 
liabilities : — 

1. They do not know what events take place among 
men, except by the common senses of sound or sight, 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 1 99 

and when favourably placed; for example, when near 
at hand, or when sound is loud. 

2. They do not know what is in the mind, and must 
ask to be informed. 

3. They shriek or cry aloud from emotion. 

4. When they move, it is (a) by gradual progression ; 
{b) with means of conveyance. 

5. They are liable to be hurt and wounded. 

6. Human warriors can contend against them. 

7. Their worship is peculiar to some races or places. 

8. They are even liable to disparagement in com- 
munications held by the higher gods with men. 

9. They have little or no command over outward 
nature and the elements. 

10. They do not habitually repair to Olympos 1 . 

11. Their partialities and propensities are without 
system, policy, or governing mind. 

12. They neither have divine foreknowledge, nor, 
in many cases, have they prudence or forethought equal 
to the human. 

13. They are not able immediately to influence the 
human mind. 

The only deities who may be called absolutely free 
from all these limitations are Zeus, Athene, and 
Apollo. 

Even Here is subject to some of them : Poseidon to 
more. 

Not even those deities, who are omnipresent upon 
earth, and take cognisance of all human affairs, are 
precisely informed as to what takes place in the super- 
nal region; for when Here sent Iris to Achilles, in 

1 Where, however, Hephaistos lived (II. xviii. 143-147); but 
perhaps for special reasons. 



200 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the Eighteenth Iliad 1 , to urge him to appear before the 
contending armies, it was done without the knowledge 
either of Zeus or of any other deity. 

Certain special features, as we have seen, and shall 
further see, are traceable, most of all in the Athene 
and Apollo of the Homeric Poems, but also in Zeus, 
and (more forcibly) in Leto and in Iris, as well as in 
one or two other Olympian personages : and these fea- 
tures, in the case of the two first-named deities parti- 
cularly, impart to the pictures of them an extraordinary 
elevation and force, such as to distinguish them broadly 
from the delineations of other gods, in whom these par- 
ticular features are wanting. The features themselves 
are in the most marked correspondence with the Hebraic • 
traditions, as conveyed in the books of Holy Scripture,, 
and also as handed down in the auxiliary sacred learning 
of the Jews. But while it seems impossible to deny the 
correspondence without doing violence to facts, on the 
other hand we are not able to point out historically the 
channel of communication through which these tradi- 
tions were conveyed into Greece, and became operative 
in the formation of the Olympian scheme. 

At first sight we should be tempted to suppose that 
the Phoenician navigators offered the natural and pro- 
bable explanation of any such phenomena. Because, 
on the one hand, we know, from the historic books of 
Scripture, that the Phoenicians were at an early date 
in habits of intercourse with the Jews; while, on the 
other hand, they not only were in like habits with the 
Achaian Greeks of Homer, but also, as far as we can 
discern, no other nation had a sensible amount of 

1 w. 183-186. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 201 

intercourse with Greece, or if there were such, it passed 
under the Phoenician name. 

And again, there is one of the legends of Homer 
with reference to which the presumption arises with 
a peculiar force. 

Apart from any disposition to premature deduction 
or imaginative interpretation, it seems obvious to ob- 
serve upon the striking similarity between the legend 
of Bellerophon, solicited by the wife of Proitos, and 
that of Joseph, by the wife of Potiphar. 

And the great abundance of tales forming the outer 
circle of the Odyssey, which (it is hardly too much to 
say) can only have had a Phoenician origin, and which 
touch almost every point of the compass except that 
to the eastward of Phoenicia itself, suggests the likeli- 
hood that this enterprising people would not be destitute 
of reports from that quarter also. 

The name of Proitos 1 , appearing on one of the seven 
gates of Thebes, which mark its Phoenician re-founda- 
tion, supplies a positive link between the legend of 
Bellerophon and the source to which I am ascribing it. 

A second such link is supplied by the written charac- 
ters, in which Proitos communicated with the King of 
Lycia respecting Bellerophon. The art of writing, ac- 
cording to the later tradition, was brought by Phoeni- 
cians into Greece ; and the name of Proitos distinctly 
connects the text of Homer with that belief. 

Our finding the family of Bellerophon in close re- 
lations with Proitos tends, of itself, to induce a belief 
in their ethnical connection. This presumption comes 
into clearer light when we observe that Bellerophon 
was an Aiolid. 

1 Paus. p. 727. 



202 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

It must also be admitted that, in supposing any other 
channels than the Phoenician for the conveyance of 
these traditions, we should force them up -to a very 
early point of time, namely, that of the separation of 
the Semitic, and the Japhetic or Aryan, branches of 
the human family. 

It is however admitted that the Olympian scheme 
has for its distinctive character, or differentia^ the in- 
tense action of the anthropomorphic principle ; which 
pervades and moulds the whole, repelling, and as it were 
repudiating, on the one hand all abstract speculations 
about the Deity, on the other the worship of Nature- 
Powers and of the animal creation. It is also clear, 
that some of the Hebraic traditions were eminently 
calculated to develop the anthropomorphic principle. 
The promise or expectation of a Redeemer, or Deli- 
verer, of man, who should be at once human and divine, 
laid a basis for the entire system, by annexing the 
glory of divine attributes to the corporeal form of man. 
And the seed thus supplied was vivified, so to speak, 
by the familiar belief in the intercourse of God with 
the patriarchs, which so readily adapts itself to, if 
indeed it does not require, the use of a form approach- 
ing at least to the human type. 

Every race had its own religious traditions. Each 
modified, or kept, or lost them, in obedience to its 
ruling tendencies. It does not seem strange that 
the tribe or tribes, whatever they were, which brought 
into Greek life and religion what proved to be their 
central principle, should have clung with a great 
tenacity to, and preserved far more faithfully than other 
races of a less fine composition, those traditions which 
were so well adapted to the effective development 
of their peculiar genius. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 203 

Among the Hebrews, besides what has been en- 
shrined in the Sacred Scriptures, there was a stream 
of tradition 1 otherwise delivered and relating to the 
Messiah, which, though it nowhere impugns or even 
varies, yet vividly illustrates the written record. I 
subjoin some particulars. 

1 . The Messiah was to be divine. 

2. He was conceived of as c the Glory of God ' in the 
feminine gender. 

3. The relation of His two natures was set forth 
in the figure of mother and daughter. 

4. He was to be the Logos, the Word or Wisdom 
of God. 

5. He was the Lord of Hosts — an idea which would 
naturally take form in some martial development. 

6. He was especially The Light. 

7. He was to be the Mediator, through whom the 
counsels of God take effect upon man. 

8. He was to perform miracles. 

9. He was to conquer the Evil One, and to libe- 
rate the dead from the grave and from the power of 
hell. 

10. And, generally,, the divine qualities were all 
to be reflected in the Messiah (conceived as masculine) 
or Shechinah (as feminine) 2 . 

We may probably regard the use of the feminine 
gender in these traditions as having been either (r) the 
most convenient mode of impersonating an abstract 
idea of the Wisdom of God, or (2) as suggested by 



1 Studies, vol. ii. pp. 48-51. 

2 lb. vol. ii. pp. 51-53. Taken principally from Schottgen's 
Horae Hebraicae, 



204 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the arrangements of the Egyptian, or other Eastern 
religions. 

This is not the place to discuss at large the origin of 
the numerous religions which have existed outside the 
pale of the Divine revelation. It was a favourite 
opinion with the Christian apologists, Eusebius and 
others, that the pagan deities represented deified men \ 
Others consider them to signify the powers of external 
nature personified. For others they are, in many cases, 
impersonations of human passions and propensities, 
reflected back from the mind of man. A fourth mode 
of interpretation would treat them as copies, distorted 
and depraved, of a primitive system of religion given 
by God to man. The Apostle St, Paul speaks of them 
as devils 2 ; by which he may perhaps intend to convey 
that, under the names and in connection with the 
worship of those deities, the worst influences of the 
Evil One were at work. This would rather be a 
subjective than an objective description; and would 
rather convey an account of the practical working of 
a corrupted religion, than an explanation of its origin 
or its early course. As between the other four, it seems 
probable that they all, in various degrees and manners, 
entered into the composition of the later paganism, 
and also of the Homeric or Olympian system. That 
system, however, was profoundly adverse to mere 
Nature- worship ; while the care of departments or 
provinces of external nature were assigned to its 
leading personages. Such worship of natural objects 
or elemental powers, as prevailed in connection with 
it, was in general local or secondary. And the deifi- 

1 See the Propaideia or Praeparatio Evangelica of Eusebius, 
passim. 2 i Cor. x. 20. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 205 

cation of heroes in the age of Homer was rare and 
merely titular. We do not find that any cult or 
system of devotion was attached to it. 

The preternatural machinery of the Homeric Poems, 
besides its other qualities, is singularly complex and 
comprehensive. Its complexity is doubtless due to the 
fact, that Homer had to represent and to harmonise 
the several varieties of religion, which had found its 
way into the country in company with immigrating 
races, families, or persons. Its comprehensiveness is 
owing to that anthropomorphic principle on which it is 
framed, and which borrowed from earth, and carried up 
to Olympos, the state, the family, and the individual, 
as they exist among men. 

The bold invention by which the gods take sides 
in the War of Troy, and decide the controversy by 
main force in heaven, before it can finally be brought to 
issue on the plain between the Achaian and Trojan 
armies, is not a flight of the imagination only. The 
partisanship of the respective deities, this way and 
that, is evidently dictated by sympathies of race. 
Neither the blood, nor yet the religion, of the two 
countries were wholly separate ; but differences of 
leaning and of colour between them may readily be 
discerned upon a close examination. And again, 
the mode in which general rules are occasionally 
varied in the Poems, irresistibly suggests that there 
is a reason both for the rule and for the exceptions ; 
as, for example, in the care of Poseidon for ^neas 
the Trojan, and in his persecution of Odysseus the 
Greek. We may also discern the marks of subdivided 
attachments. The care of Athene is exercised chiefly 
on behalf first of Odysseus, next to him of Achilles, 



206 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

and next to him of Diomed. The care of Here is 
for the Pelopid family, and apparently for the Greeks 
as the people whom they lead. Irrespectively, then, 
of the manifold interest attaching to the Homeric 
mythology, both as a religion and as poetry, it is 
in truth a main key to the ethnography of the Poems, 
and even might on this account be taken as a point of 
departure in an investigation, which it influences from 
first to last. 

The personages of the Homeric Theotechny, under 
which name I include the whole of the supernatural 
beings, of whatever rank, introduced into the Poems, 
are so diversified in character, intellect, and power, 
that while they cannot be described under any one 
common form, it is difficult to divide them into classes 
with anything like precision. Into the following cate- 
gories, however, we may distribute them with a 
tolerable approach to accuracy. 

i. The Olympian deities; recognised and actual 
governors, but with immensely different titles and 
prerogatives, either of the inner and Greek world, or 
of the outer world known more faintly and indirectly 
to the Greeks. 

2. The greater Nature-Powers, with Okeanos at their 
head, who had apparently been supreme in the prior or 
Pelasgian Theogony. 

3. The lesser Nature-Powers, who continued to hold 
their ground, at least in local influence. 

4. Minor deities of foreign tradition, neither na- 
turalised nor acknowledged in Greece, as not being of 
sufficient significance to claim admission to Olympos. 

5. Rebellious powers. 

6. Ministers of Doom and Justice, real or reputed ; 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 2C>7 

less than divinities in rank, but more closely associated 
with the moral order. 

7. Impersonated ideas connected with the objects of 
human desire and aversion, hope and fear. 

8. Translated, or deified, heroes. 

9. Races intermediate between gods and men. 

Again. Many elements of the Hebrew traditions re- 
corded in the Holy Scriptures, or otherwise preserved 
among the Jews down to later times, appear in the 
Olympian Court of Homer. But they are not found in 
all the personages that compose the assemblage ; nor 
even in all those deities whom, from various kinds of 
evidence in the Poems, we perceive to have been fully 
recognised as objects of the national worship. Further, 
in the characters where the features corresponding with 
Hebrew traditions mainly appear, there is a peculiar 
elevation of tone, and a remarkable degree of reverence 
is maintained towards them, so as to separate them, 
not indeed by an uniform, but commonly by a per- 
ceptible and even a broad line, from the remainder 
of the gods. 

Besides the idea of a Deity which in some sense 
is three in one, the traditions traceable in Homer, 
which appear to be drawn from the same source as 
those of Holy Scripture, are chiefly these : — (1) A 
Deliverer, conceived under the double form, first of the 
c seed of the woman' — a being at once Divine and 
human, secondly of the Logos, the Word or Wisdom 
of God. (2) Next, the woman whose seed this 
Redeemer was to be. (3) Next, the rainbow con- 
sidered as a means, or a sign, of communication 
between God and man. And finally the tradition of 
an Evil Being, together with his ministers, working 



208 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

under the double form described by Moloch in his 
speech, of c open war/ and of c wiles ;' as a rebel, 
and as a tempter. This last tradition is indeed 
shivered into fragments, such as the giants precipitated 
into Tartaros, and as Ate roaming on the earth; with 
perhaps a portion of the idea lodged in Kronos, whose 
common and only description in Homer is c Kronos 
of the crooked thought ' (ayfcvAofxrJr^?). The other four 
traditions appear to be represented in the persons 
of Apollo, Athene, Leto, and Iris. Of course it by 
no means follows that they have no other origin than 
in these traditions, or that, as they stand in Homer, 
they represent such traditions and nothing else. Iris, 
for example, must evidently be considered as an im- 
personation of a Nature-Power. What seems to me 
undeniable is that, in the Poems of Homer, the tra- 
ditions I have named are at the least copiously and 
richly embroidered upon the tissue, supplied by other 
accounts of the mythological persons I have named; 
and that they give to those persons a distinctiveness 
of character and form, which upon a close and detailed 
view of the Olympian system, as it is unfolded in the 
Poems of Homer, cannot well be mistaken by a pains- 
taking and unprejudiced observer. If, in the progress 
of time, and with the mutations which that system 
gradually underwent, the marks of correspondence with 
the Hebrew records became more faint, the fact even 
raises some presumption that, were we enabled to 
go yet further back, we should obtain yet fuller and 
clearer evidence of their identity of origin in certain 
respects. 

Even the highest conception of deity in Homer does 
not exclude the element of fraud. I will give an 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 200, 

example. There can be no question that the prize of 
the loftiest, most free, and most constant and unvary- 
ing intelligence in the whole catalogue of Olympian 
deities must be given to Athene- who, alone among 
them, is never ignorant of what it concerns her to 
know, never exposed to disrespect, never outwitted by 
an opponent, never disappointed of an end. But, in 
the great crisis of Hector and Achilles, when the in- 
trinsic superiority of the Greek hero makes him inde- 
pendent of any even more honourable aid, she descends 
to the mean and shameful artifice of assuming the form 
of his brother Deiphobos, whom he especially loved and 
trusted, to induce him to turn and meet his adversary 1 . 
This arrangement is the more remarkable, because it 
is somewhat difficult to discern the motive for such an 
intervention, or to see why Achilles could not, with 
his extraordinary swiftness of foot, have overtaken 
Hector apart from any assistance whatever. Perhaps 
it was an artifice of the Poet to uplift the character of 
Hector, of course in order to glorify yet further the 
Greek hero, who was to overcome him. 

Those pure and lofty traditions, then, which we are 
justly wont to refer to a primitive revelation as their 
fountain-head, had already begun to be impaired. And 
it is only what we ought to expect, if we find that with 
the lapse of time they suffered further deterioration, 
and if the persons representing them gradually sunk 
nearer and nearer to the level of those other Olympian 
deities who had already in the time of Homer lost, or 
who perhaps never had possessed, any notes of the sub- 
lime conceptions which the Holy Scriptures, and in some 
degree the auxiliary traditions of the Hebrews, have 

1 II. xxii. 214-247. 
P 



210 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [ 



CHAP. 



handed down to us in the greatest purity, and which 
the peculiar genius that became dominant in the Greek 
religion had, for a time at least, been able to preserve, 
if not from all injurious contact, yet from anything like 
absolute immersion in the mire. The Athene and 
Apollo of the Olympian system may be compared with 
the Child in the noble Ode of Wordsworth; about 
whom, in his infancy, Heaven is lying, who as boy and 

youth 

Yet by the vision splendid 
Is on his way attended; 

but who in process of time parts from it altogether : 

At length the man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day 1 . 

It is no part of the object of this work to institute 
a detailed comparison between the earliest and the 
later stages of the morality and religion of the heathen 
world; but I shall now state summarily the results 
which such a comparison would, I think, reasonably 
suggest, so far as religion is concerned. 

Religion and race have ever run much together. We 
find in Homer the clear tokens of a composite people, 
and of a composite belief. With the lapse of time the 
edges and angles of ethnical differences are worn down. 
The nation and the creed settle down upon an acknow- 
ledged platform ; and the distinctive features, though 
they do not wholly vanish, take a form which it is dif- 
ficult to trace back to their first origin. All formations, 
especially if complex, must be examined in their be- 
ginnings. The religion of classical and historic Greece 
is already an old religion. The Poems of Homer enable 

1 Wordsworth's Ode on the Recollections of Childhood. 



VII 



,] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 211 



us to investigate its first inception. We can trace the 
very finger of the artist on the clay he moulded for his 
countrymen's behoof. But as the nation was compacted 
and consolidated, the component parts of the religion 
also settled down, and their specific differences, like 
colours running, lost all definite outline. 

This loss of distinctive notes in the Greek mythology 
was a deteriorating and not an improving process. The 
gods of later times were not relieved from the stains 
which attach to them in Homer. Some legends, which 
with him appear in a beautiful and noble shape, became 
utterly abominable and base. While the level of the 
higher characters of his Theogony was reduced till it 
nearly reached that of the lower, the level of the lower 
was in no way raised. In the processes of change, 
nothing was given, all was taken away. 

But the grand distinction between the Homeric and 
the later systems was this : that the earlier scheme was 
a real, though it was a corrupt, religion. It acted upon 
life. It menaced the excesses of power. It prescribed 
the duties of reverence to age and authority, of hospi- 
tality to the stranger, and of mercy to the poor. It 
had one and the same standing with reference to all 
classes. It did not assign to deity that most ungodlike 
quality, respect of persons. But in after times, apart 
from its deeper moral stains, it became wholly severed 
from the cultured mind; and subsisted mainly as the 
jest of philosophers and men of the world, the tool of 
priests and rulers, the bugbear of the vulgar. 

Again, it may be noticed that the religion of Homer, 
subject to varying closeness of relation between dif- 
ferent places and particular deities, is, though not an 
uniform, yet an universal religion. 

p % 



212 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

The Poet evidently supposed that in some manner 
the Olympian gods governed not the Greeks only, but 
all mankind. This perhaps is the reason why he has 
admitted into the Olympian family personages like 
Ares, Aphrodite, and the Sun, whom we cannot affirm 
to have been worshipped at the time in Greece; the 
evidence being, indeed, adverse to any such supposition. 
This element of truth in his conceptions of Deity is 
clearly exhibited by the banquets provided for his gods 
among the Aithiopes; by the scene of the Iliad, in 
which Zeus turns his eyes over the country of the Hip- 
pemolgoi and the Abioi 1 ; and especially by this, that, 
in the wide range of the Voyage of Odysseus, though 
he comes within the special jurisdiction first of Posei- 
don, and next of Helios, still there is always a power 
of supreme control lodged in the Olympian Assembly ; 
a power, by means of which his release from the island 
of Calypso is finally obtained. 

It seems as if his primitive spirit had been unable 
to embrace the conception, which in later times came 
into vogue, of different and unconnected deities ruling 
different portions of mankind ; and as if both his own 
and the prevailing religious sense required that, although 
the name and worship of many among them had origi- 
nally come from, or even still belonged to, a foreign 
shore, yet they should, as far as their importance re- 
quired him to take notice of them, be bound together 
into a supreme and organised unity. But, notwithstand- 
ing, within the bosom of this unity the character and 
associations of his own race, which, without doubt, he 
placed at the head of all mankind, were to be predomi- 

1 II. xiii. 3-6. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 2IJ 

nant. In this combination of ideas we find the basis, 
and the warrant, of his Olympian system. 

The collective action of the Olympian deities in the 
government of men is less infirm, more venerable, 
more divine, than their individual action. When they 
move together, the mere idiosyncracies, in which they 
abound, appear to be in a great degree lost and absorbed. 
The co-operation of the three great Hellenising deities 
in the War against Troy is, indeed, the efficient cause 
of the divine decision in favour of the Greeks. And 
this again is mythically referred to a vindictive senti- 
ment on the part of each of the men ; yet the decision 
is a righteous decision. And, speaking generally, while 
the individual members of the Olympian Court are 
swayed by hate, lust, and greed, they have not any 
objects which they can pursue in common for the grati- 
fication of these appetites or passions; and thus is 
neutralised the personal bias which so frequently draws 
them off the line of moral obligation, and more free 
scope is given, in all their common action, to the 
exercise of the true governing office. 

It is somewhat singular that we have not, in the 
true Olympian religion, any clear instance of a married 
deity, except Zeus. Hephaistos is married to Aphro- 
dite only in the Phoenician, or rather perhaps Syrian, 
mythology of the Eighth Odyssey. In the Iliad he is 
but wooing Charis 1 . That Amphi trite is the wife of 
Poseidon is a purely gratuitous assumption, and is in 
every way improbable, since Amphitrite has no clear or 
definite impersonation. Helios and Perse had children; 
but they are wholly within the Eastern mythology. 
The names of Aides and Persephone are commonly 
1 II. xviii. 382. 



2T4 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

combined in such a way as would be consistent 
with, and as may even suggest, their being married. 
But this would scarcely harmonise with his general 
arrangements, if Demeter was the mother of Persephone, 
and if A'idoneus 1 was an earthy Zeus. And Homer has 
carefully avoided using any words which would directly 
place them in this relation. Okeanos and Tethus, 
Kronos and Rhea, lie outside the Olympian scheme. 

If this observation be correct, the fact is probably to 
be accounted for in this way : Homer had no idea of 
a normal marriage without issue. Where there were 
none, it was a heaven-sent calamity. He could not, 
then, have divinities distributed in barren pairs. But 
to have provided them with families would have placed 
him in difficulties, such as may sometimes be felt by 
royalty on earth, with respect to the means of providing 
for a numerous offspring. It would have been difficult 
to weave them into the stock of traditions which sup- 
plied his raw material. Moreover, as between brothers 
and sisters, the Greek horror of incest perhaps would 
ill have allowed the general use of the idea of a matri- 
monial connection; though Here was the sister as well 
as the wife of Zeus, and though this double relation 
was not at all foreign to such Eastern traditions 2 as 
he had received through the Phoenicians. Thus he 
was shut up on all sides to arranging his Olympos, as 
to its younger generation, in the form of the single 
though manifold family of Zeus. 

Again. Within the theological system of Homer, and 
as a kind of kernel to it, there lies a system which may 
be called one of deontology, or that which ought to 
be, and to be done. c Will' is the supreme element 

1 See infra, A'idoneus. 2 Od. x. 5-9. 



VII.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 21$ 

in the mythological action- or, at the least, it is in 
practice co-ordinate with c ought,' and it seems to be 
in conduct the livelier principle of the two. But 
the idea conveyed in ( ought' has a separate sphere, 
and ministers of its own, to which even Olympian 
personages pay regard. Its laws are expressed some- 
times in terms relating to destiny: most purely of all 
in 6ms and in vi^eo-is', which may truly be said to 
reflect the moral sense of the gods, and which are 
never used by Homer to express a mere mental emo- 
tion of mankind. They may convey more or less the 
sense of an emotion, but it is an emotion always 
springing from and regulated by a regard to the essen- 
tial laws of right, to the themistesof heaven. A third 
form, in which the dictates of the moral law are ex- 
pressed and enforced, is in the action of its mute but 
ever active ministers, the Erinues. 

These topics will be opened in their due order. I 
pass to another head. 

Homer informs us in the Eighteenth Iliad that 
Hephaistos was found by Thetis busy in finishing a 
set of twenty seats 1 , for the members of the Olym- 
pian Court to use in their assemblies. I have observed 
that, with some allowance for the vagueness common 
with the Poet in the use of figures, we may take this 
incident as indicating pretty closely what he meant to 
be understood as the number of the Di majores, or 
personages qualified to attend at the Council (boule) of 
the gods. 

As to nearly the whole of them, there is no difficulty 
in drawing out the roll : — 

1 II. xviii. 372-377. 



21 6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 



I. The children of Kronos :- 

i. Zeus 

2. Poseidon 

3. Aidoneus 

4. Here 



II. The secondary wives of Zeus 

1. Leto -) 

2. Demeter > . . * 

3. Dione J 



III. The children of Zeus :— 

1. Athene 

2. Apollo 

3. Hephaistos 

4. Hermes 

5. Artemis 

6. Ares 

7. Persephone 

8. Aphrodite 



IV. Personages not classified, but performing 
Olympian offices : — 

1. Themis, the Summon er 

2. Iris, the Envoy 

3. Hebe, the Cupbearer 



} 



18 



VII 



.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 21 7 



Besides these eighteen we have 

i. Helios, the Sun, taking part in Olympian pro- 
ceedings 1 . 

2. Paieon, who appears to be ordinarily present there 
as Healer 2 . 

Both these personages came to be absorbed in Apollo : 
but in Homer they are distinct from him : and, so far 
as the poet may have had a distinct intention as to 
number, these two have perhaps the best claim to the 
Nineteenth and Twentieth places. 

3. Another claim, making the Twenty-first, is that 
of Dionusos ; whose position, however, in Homer is 
faintly marked and somewhat equivocal 3 . 

On the whole we ought perhaps to reject two other 
names. 

1. Eris, or Enuo, the sister and the paramour of 
Ares 4 . She grows up, and this as it seems habitually, 
from small to huge dimensions. She remains to wit- 
ness the battle of the Eleventh Iliad, while the other 
deities withdraw to their Olympian palaces respect- 
ively 5 . She is sent down to the camp at the beginning 
of the same Book, and shouts from the ship of Odys- 
seus. She is named, too, together with Pallas 6 , in 
contrast with the effeminate Aphrodite. Yet, on the 
whole, she is probably no more than a vivid poetical 
impersonation. In conformity with this supposition, 
while Ares carries a spear as he leads the Trojans to 
the fight, she conducts, instead, another form yet more 
shadowy than her own, that of Kudoimos, or Tumult. 

2. Histie, who is Vesta, and one of the Di ma j ores, 

1 Od. viii. 270, 302, and xii. 374-376. 2 II. v. 401, 899. 

3 Infra, ch. viii. sect. Dionusos. 4 II. iv. 441. 

5 II. xi. 3, 4j 73. 6 II. v. 333, 592. 



2l8 juventus mundi. 

in the Roman mythology, and who is also fully per- 
sonified in the post-Homeric poetry of the Greeks, can 
scarcely be considered as a person in the view of 
Homer. There are indeed invocations to her name 1 , 
which signifies c the hearth/ in the Odyssey; but in 
three cases out of the five it is combined with that of 
the table for guests. 

1 Od. xiv. 159; xvii. 160; xix. 304; xx. 230. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The Divinities of Olympos. 



Section I. Zeus. 

Zeus presents to us a character more heterogeneous 
and less^consistent than that of any other Homeric 
deity. 

He claims a strength superior to the united strength 
of all the gods 1 ; yet he admits that he would have some 
difficulty 2 in putting down Poseidon singlehanded ; and 
he was actually delivered by a giant 3 from fetters into 
which he had been, or was about to be, thrown by a 
combination of that god with Athene and Here. 

In many points he inherits the traditions, and is 
formed upon the conception, of the One and Supreme 
God. Yet he was one of three brothers, who had 
parents preceding them : the three were born to equal 
honour 4 : lot alone decided their several domains. 
Seniority gives Zeus the first place : yet the filial tie 
had not prevented him from imprisoning his own father 
in perpetuity. He is alike the depository of high moral 
ideas, and of intense, as well as of debased, human 

1 II. iv. 17-27. 2 II. xv. 228. 

3 II. i. 399-406. 4 II. xv. 209. 



220 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

attributes. He bears many different characters; and 
no one of them is altogether consistent with the 
rest. 

There are five different capacities in which, in order 
to embrace the entire picture drawn by the Poet, he 
must be regarded. Four of them are Olympian: one 
appertains to an earlier theogonic scheme. 

i. Zeus is the meeting-point of the Pelasgic with 
the Olympian or Hellenic system of religion. 

2. He is the depository of the principal remnants of 
monotheistic and providential ideas. 

3. He is the sovereign lord of meteorological phe- 
nomena. 

4. He is the head of the Olympian Court. 

5. He is the most marked receptacle of all such 
earthly, sensual, and appetitive elements as, at the 
time of Homer, anthropophuism had obtruded into the 
sphere of deity. 

On the epithets and verbal ascriptions of Zeus, we 
may observe, 

1. That they much exceed in number and variety 
those of any other deity. 

2. That with few and special exceptions they are 
applied to him exclusively. 

3. That they divide themselves into classes accord- 
ing as they belong to him, 

a. In respect of national or special worship, as 
Dodonaios, Idaios, Pelasgicos, Olumpios. 

b. In respect of his chief place in the Hellenic theo- 
gony, as air-god : such as aaT^poir^Trj^ re^eA^yeperr]?, 
K€\aiV€(j)r}S, Tepirucepavvos, epiy5oi/7roj, evpvoTrrjS. 

c. In respect of his character as the Providence and 
Governor of mankind, and the defender of social and 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 221 

moral laws : such as de&v v-naros kcli apiaros, irar-qp av- 
bpS>v re de&v T€, ju^TieV^y, £eivios, i/cenjcrtos : highest and 
best of gods, father of gods and men, the Zeus of 
counsel, the Zeus of the guest, the Zeus of the sup- 
pliant. 

Let us now proceed to this fivefold observation of 
the Homeric Zeus. 

i. The Pelasgian Zeus. 

At times, the Zeus of Homer appears to border upon 
the mere Nature-Power : as in the epithet Aimer/)?, 
c falling from Zeus/ applied to rivers : in "Evfaos, 
meaning c at noontide,' and recalling the c sub dio, sub 
Jove/ of the Latins. Also the expressions, Atbs 6'nPpos, 
avyah, vifyabts, oapai, the rain, rays, snow-flakes, hours 
or seasons of Zeus, may all be compared with analo- 
gous expressions applied to Demeter and to Hephaistos. 
We may consider all these as being, in their various 
shades, relics of the Pelasgian worship of Nature- 
Powers. 

We may in fact either consider the Pelasgian Zeus, 
and the Zeus of the anthropomorphic system, as one 
or as two. It is probable that two separate clusters 
of tradition may have belonged to the same name, and 
that in time they coalesced together, in obedience to 
the law of public feeling, combined with their respec- 
tive internal aptitudes. And this condition may have 
been the solution no less of a great ethnical than a 
great mythological question. 

According to the legend of Thetis, in the First 
Iliad, there was a time when Here, Poseidon, and 
Athene combined to put. him in bonds. He was saved 
from this peril by Thetis, who fetched Briareus, or 



222 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. 

Aigaion of the Hundred Hands, to his aid. This giant 
was stronger than his father Poseidon, and on his 
arrival the plan was abandoned. Of the three deities 
named, Here and Athene are eminently Hellenic, and 
Poseidon appears to be Phoenician. The meaning of 
the legend therefore probably is, that the supremacy of 
the old, and perhaps purely elemental, Zeus of the 
Pelasgians was endangered by the arrival of the Phoe- 
nician and Hellenic immigrants with their respective 
religious associations : but that an accommodation was 
afterwards effected, and a Zeus acknowledged, who 
sufficiently took into himself the Pelasgian element. 

The Zeus of Homer is the Pelasgic Zeus, and the Zeus 
of Dodona; and he is also worshipped by the Helloi 1 . 
These Helloi appear to represent the Hellenic race in 
its pre-Hellenic form; and the Pelasgian name, with 
that of Dodona, places the throne of Zeus within the 
shadows of the pre-Hellenic period. It is true that, in 
the Theogony of Homer, this deity has ancestors and 
antecessors : and he alone, of the family of gods proper 
to the Pelasgians, is carried over at once into the Hel- 
lenic and Olympian system. This may have been both 
because, as the god of air and light, he answered best 
among them to that more abstracted and less mate- 
rialised conception of Deity which the Hellenic mind 
required ; and because there clustered around him 
whatever traditions of a supreme and single Being the 
world of human thought had either fashioned or re- 
tained. In any case it is plain that the Poet, having 
got rid of all claims of priority by relegating the 
Nature-Powers to the Underworld, or to the sea-floor, 
or to the extremities of the earth, is thus enabled to 

1 II. xvi. 233-235. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 12$ 

leave his Zeus firmly grounded in authority as the 
senior god of the Olympian system. And this claim 
of seniority is the true basis of his supremacy. To 
this it is, and by no means to mere excess of force, 
that Poseidon defers in the Fifteenth Iliad, as to a 
claim profoundly rooted in that moral order, which 
even gods acknowledge and respect. 

It is at the stage where the Past, having been before 
only cloud and mist, becomes for Homer that shaped 
tradition which occupied, relatively to his time, the 
place of History, that Zeus offers to the mind of the 
Greek hearer the earliest definite point upon which 
understanding and memory can fix, so that he can be 
chosen as, for practical purposes, the origin to which 
all things are to be traced up and referred. 

It seems likely that this priority of Zeus may lie at 
the root of his preference for Troy : a state and people 
in which we discern the predominance of a mere Pelas- 
gian character, and where the royal family mounts to a 
greater antiquity than that of any properly Hellenic or 
Achaian race. 

2. The Divine Zeus. 

To Zeus as Providence belong both a number of 
separate ascriptions, and a general position, which 
underlies the whole action of the Iliad. The grandeur 
of his figure and attributes transcends every other com- 
position. He is identified, in perhaps an hundred 
places of the Poems, with the word theos, in its more 
abstracted signification as Providence, or the moral 
governor of the world. He is the rafxC^ tto/W'/xoio, the 
arbiter of war: and he exhibits in the sky, on great 



324 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

occasions, the scales in which are weighed contending 
fates. He is the source of governing authority, and he 
shows his displeasure when it is abused 1 . He is the 
distributor in general of good and evil among mortals j 
for it is on his floor that the two caskets 2 stand, from 
which are dispensed the mixed and the unmixed lots of 
men. He has the care of the guest, the suppliant, and 
the poor ; and thus his name becomes the guarantee for 
three relations, which were and are fundamental to the 
condition of mankind, considered with reference to 
social existence. Indeed in this character he is him- 
self a source of Destiny, as we find from the remark- 
able phrase Aios ato-a, the fate of, or proceeding from, 
Zeus. 

Zeus approximates to, and perhaps possesses, an ubi- 
quitous or universal supremacy. Hellic and Pelasgian, 
Idaian and Olympian, he leads the band of the Immor- 
tals to feast during an eleven days' absence on the sa- 
crifices offered by the Aithiopes or Ethiopians, who 
occupied the whole southern line of the world of 
Homer 3 : and he likewise, in an interval of his cares 
respecting Troy, casts his eyes in the far north not 
only over Thracians and Mycians, but over Hippe- 
molgoi and Abioi 4 . His name is likewise acknow- 
ledged in the border land of Scherie, and in the outer 
sphere where Poseidon rules : for, say the brother Cy- 
clops to the brutal Poluphemos, c Disease comes from 
the mighty Zeus, and cannot be escaped : pray how- 
ever to thy father the lord Poseidon 5 / From this 
passage we perceive that Zeus was not for Homer a 
mere name for Poseidon in his own kingdom, as 

1 II. xvi. 387. 2 II. xxiv. 527. 3 Od. i. 23. 

4 II. xiii. 1-6. 5 Od. ix. 411. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 22$ 

Aidoneus is called ' the Zeus beneath 1 . 5 The meaning 
more nearly approaches to a recognition of the Provi- 
dential character of Zeus, as contradistinguished from 
his Olympian capacity. In this larger conception his 
individual existence at times appears almost wholly to 
merge. 

Zeus, however, although no positive limits are affixed 
to his capacities of perception and knowledge, does not 
as a matter of course perceive all that is going on among 
mortals. By an expedient of some naivete, he turns 
his eyes away from Troy towards Thrace and the 
righteous nations of the North, when Poseidon is about 
to come into the field. This god, assuming a disguise, 
remains there long without being observed, although 
the sleep of Zeus has not yet come 2 . 

And again, to save the body of Patroclos, Here sends 
Iris on a mission to Achilles, which is concealed from 
Zeus as well as from the other gods 3 (Kpvfiba Atbs ak\o)v 
re 6eG>v). 

After the Theomachy also, he inquires of Artemis 
who it was that had maltreated her. Yet he had seen, 
and had exulted in seeing, the gods as they engaged in 
conflict 4 . 

Besides these physical limitations, Zeus is subject to 
deceit. He is entrapped by Here through the medium 
of his passion 5 , and is lulled into a sleep, in order that 
during his inaction his decree may be disobeyed. In 
like manner 6 that goddess had completely outwitted 
him at the time of the birth of Heracles, by obtaining 
a promise on behalf of a descendant of his who was to 






1 II. ix. 457. 2 II. xiii. 1-16, 352-356. 3 II. xviii. 165-169. 
4 II. xxi. 389, 509. 5 II. xiv. 352. 6 II. xix. 97 seqq. 

Q 



226 J U VENT US MUNDI. 



CHAP. 



be born on that day, and by then accelerating the birth 
of Eurustheus in Argos, and stopping that of Heracles 
in Thebes. 

On certain occasions, we find Zeus acting as supreme 
and single-handed, neither against nor with the Olym- 
pian assembly. The grandest of these is at the close 
of the Odyssey 1 . Athene, stimulated by her sympa- 
thising keenness, appears to have winked at the na- 
tural, but vengeful, disposition of Odysseus towards his 
ungrateful and rebellious subjects. Zeus, who had pre- 
viously counselled moderation, launches his thunder- 
bolt ; and it falls at the foot of Athene, who thereupon 
gives the required caution to the exasperated sovereign. 
Peace immediately follows 2 . 

He has also this marked and paramount distinction, 
that he never descends to earth to execute his own pur- 
poses, but in general sends other deities as his organs, 
to give effect to his will, or else operates himself from 
afar, by signs, or by positive exertions of the power 
which he possesses as god of air. 

Zeus, however, is not absolutely omnipresent ; for his 
journey, and his consequent absence from Olympos, are 
described 3 . But, unlike the case of Poseidon, we have 
no detail, no succession in his movement. Again, 
unlike Poseidon, he hears prayer irrespective of the 
particular place or point from which it is offered. 

1 Od. xxiv. 481, 525-541, 546. 2 Od. xxiv. 546. 

3 II. i. 420-425. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. %1 h ] 



3, 4. The Olympian Zeus, and the Lord of Air. 

The chief agency of Zeus in the Poems is as head of 
the Olympian family and Court. 

In this character he is the governor of the air and all 
its phenomena j the eldest of the trine brotherhood, 
and the owner of the Aigis, which is the symbol of 
sovereign power, like the crown, or sword of state, in an 
European kingdom. To him the gods rise up at their 
meetings. Though he swears, as other deities do, in 
confirmation of his word, we have no details as to the 
form : but we know that the highest mode of con- 
veying his will and word is by the nod peculiar to 
himself 1 . 

Besides those offices in relation to the air, which are 
more capable of an elemental interpretation, he com- 
mands the clouds, the tempests, the winds, the thunder 
and lightning, the years ; he impels the falling star, or 
launches the thunderbolt 2 . All signs in air belong to 
him, as does especially the rainbow, which he planted 
in the clouds 3 . Iris, accordingly, is his personal mes- 
senger in the Olympian Court. And when any of the 
attributes belonging to the region of air are employed 
by other deities, it is in virtue of a special relation to 
him. These partners of his power appear to be, exclu- 
sively of the rest, Here as his wife • with Athene and 
Apollo, in virtue of moral and traditional relations with 
the Supreme Deity, belonging to them respectively. 

The arrangement of the trine brotherhood seems to 

1 II. i. 524-530. Compare Hebrews vi. 13. 
2 Od, xii. 415-417 ; xxiv. 559. 3 II. xi. 27. 

Q2 



328 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

bear peculiar marks of a traditional origin. For, be- 
sides the division of power between three, the mode is 
remarkable. The Greek ideas and practice were 
founded, more or less, on primogeniture. Yet it is by- 
lot that Zeus receives the air, Poseidon the sea, Ai'do- 
neus the Underworld. This method of division is 
evidently meant to save the principle of equality, 
which the Poet thus curiously interweaves with the 
superiority of Zeus. 

For, as the head of the Olympian Court, it is clear 
that Zeus is stronger than any single god. It is in 
doubt whether he is, as he boasts, stronger than the 
whole. We see that at a former period three were 
able to coerce him. Perhaps we are to understand this 
legend as referring to a period of crisis : the conditions 
of human life may enter into the problem, and his 
sovereignty may be meant to be understood as one 
which when once vindicated, became resistless, and was 
thoroughly consolidated by time. His superiority, how- 
ever, must in the last resort, like that of other gover- 
nors, be maintained by main force 1 , when persuasion or 
verbal command has failed. Nor could it be exer- 
cised over the great Poseidon without a struggle 2 . 
Here and Athene, however, single or combined, he 
threatens freely- and the first of these he had once 
punished with severity 3 . 

Of omnipotence, properly so called, Homer does not 
seem to have embraced the idea. To this height, indeed, 
even the philosophy of the ancients never ascended. 
But none of the epithets of Zeus go so far as to 
express it, even in forms which might be supposed 
figurative. 

1 II. xv. 164-167. 2 II. xv. 228. 3 II. xv. 18. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. ZIQ) 

The headship of Zeus, however, is established not 
only in superior force but, as has been shown, by 
special marks of respect, and by symbols of sovereignty : 
it may be added, by the general deference of the gods. 
Other tokens are observable. There is no patronymic 
among the gods, except that of Zeus himself. And 
further, in the Olympian system proper, there is no god 
born of any divine sire other than Zeus ; nor any god 
born of a goddess, except he be the father; nor any 
god born of a human mother. 

Again, he is undisguisedly the arbiter among the 
gods. Here appeals to him on the conduct of Ares, 
and he permits his Queen to let loose Athene on the 
Trojans 1 . Ares, when wounded, carries his complaint 
to Zeus 2 ; and Artemis also sits on his knee and makes 
known to him her woes 3 . This office, as a kind of 
judgeship in appeal, is a great stay to the power of 
Zeus. 

This headship of Zeus in the Olympian polity is not 
merely ornamental ; it entails the weight of govern- 
ment. The careful reader of the Iliad will be struck 
by the resemblance between his position among the 
gods, and that of Agamemnon in the circle of his 
chieftains. As heralds upon earth are his messengers, 
so it is at his command that a messenger goes to sum- 
mon the Olympian assemblies : he commonly 4 , though 
not universally 5 , introduces the subject of discussion, 
and, so to speak, manages the debate. He also feels 
the burden of government over man, when the divine 
Assemblies are not in session. After the gorgeous 
scene of the banquet in the First Iliad, the other gods 

1 II. v. 765. 2 II. v. 782. 3 II. xxi. 705. 

* II. iv. 7 ; viii. 41 ; Od. i. 32. 5 II. xx. 13. 



230 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

slept, but Zeus slept not- he had in his hands the 
charge of the Executive, and he summoned Dream to 
do his bidding 1 . 

The idea, to which we give the name of respon- 
sibility, is represented in Zeus, and in him only. Other 
gods appear in the movement of the Iliad with an 
intermittent agency. But it is Zeus who is charged 
with the general conduct of affairs, with seeing that 
the government of the world is carried on. There is 
no better example of this, than in the Olympian As- 
sembly at the opening of the Odyssey. Odysseus is at 
the time detained by Calypso in the Island of Ogugie. 
The care of Athene does not reach to him, because he 
is in the Outer world, under the government, appa- 
rently, of Poseidon, his great enemy., Meanwhile, his 
substance is wasted, and his wife tormented, by the 
dissolute Suitors. All this exhibits a sad rent in the 
established terrestrial order." Consequently the gods 
in general are affected with compassion 2 . But it is 
the business of Zeus to introduce the subject to them, 
for their opinion and decree. 

At the same time we must observe the skill with 
which he manages the Assembly. He avoids placing 
himself in conflict with Poseidon by any hasty assump- 
tion of the initiative • and only gives his sanction to 
the plan of the Return, when Athene has complained 
of the detention, and thrown the responsibility of this 
evil upon Zeus 3 . We may observe a like refinement 
in the Assembly of the Fourth Iliad. The real object 
of Zeus in that Assembly is to draw the Greeks into 
the field, which can only be done by bringing about 
a breach of the Pact of the Third Book. And this 

1 II. ii. 1-7. 2 Od. i. 28. 3 Od. i. 62, 76. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2^1 

must be done by the Trojans, since the Achaians were 
keepers of their oaths. But his mode of action is to 
propose that the accommodation just effected shall be 
made permanent, and that Troy shall continue to sub- 
sist. For he knows very well, that this will put the 
Hellenising deities upon proposing a scheme for the 
renewal of the war, and thus that they will save him 
from giving offence to those of the Trojan party. 

It is not only in the individual characters and the 
family order, but also in the general form of the polity 
of Oiympos, that we may trace the anthropomorphic 
spirit of the Homeric religion. That polity is more 
aristocratic than monarchical. It does not exclude the 
idea of coercion, even as applied to Zeus himself ; for 
he was put in chains by the united action of Here, 
Athene, and Poseidon 1 . Upon the whole, notwith- 
standing the mutterings of Poseidon in the Fifteenth 
Iliad, the superiority of Zeus to any single deity is 
sufficiently established. But although he boasts, that he 
is able to overcome in mere force the whole Assembly 2 , 
it is incontestable that the will which ultimately pre- 
vails is that of the body, and not of the individual who 
is its head. His effort 3 to obtain a more favourable 
solution entirely fails. Homer indeed has balanced 
the question with his usual adroitness ; for, as far as 
the comparatively narrow plot of the Iliad is concerned, 
Zeus effects his purpose of glorifying Achilles, by the 
temporary success of the Trojans whom he loved. 
But it is the Battle of the gods, and the decisive supe- 
riority of the Hellenising deities, which foreshadows, 
and makes way for, the victory of Achilles over Hector. 
And, as regards the general issue of the War, it is 

1 II. i. 399-401. 2 II. viii. 18-27. 3 II. iv. 14-19. 



Zyi JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

evident that the preference of Zeus lies with the Tro- 
jans and not with the Greeks. It is then the prevailing 
sense of the Olympian Court, already represented to us 
in the Theomachy under the form of physical force, 
which determines the doom of Troy, and determines it 
in conformity with justice, but clearly against the bias, 
if not the outspoken will, of Zeus. 



5. Zeus the type of anthropomorphism. 

The framework of the Olympian system is in itself 
the most imposing form of development ever given to 
the principle of anthropomorphism ; that principle which, 
to define it briefly, casts the divine life into human 
forms. This is effected by Homer with reference to 
all the main relations of life; the State, the family, 
and the individual. The State is represented by the 
Olympian polity as a whole. The relations of the 
deities among themselves are all thrown into the form 
of the family. Perhaps it was the sheer necessity of 
the case, perhaps the fact that the stream of tradition 
came from the East, which carried with it the con- 
sequence that, while the Greek family was thoroughly 
normal, the family of the Greek gods was based upon 
polygamy 1 , and upon polygamy attended with what 
would among men be deemed a licence yet more re- 
laxed. In truth, it is the domestic organization of 
Troy, rather than of Greece, which supplies the earthly 
original from which the family in Olympos is a copy ; 
although this is a feature accidental in reference to the 
main design. 

1 II. xxi. 499. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 233 

For, in Olympos, we have Zeus with Here as his 
principal wife ; with Leto, Dione, and perhaps De- 
meter, as the secondary or subordinate wives. In the 
rear of these, came all the persons who were the sub- 
jects of his adulterous intrigues on earth. Here alone 
is the Queen, who by reflection attracts, and who 
exercises, though with a contracted power, the air- 
governing prerogatives of her husband. The other 
goddesses I have named are personages, differing in 
dignity, but agreeing in this, that they are mute and 
blind in reference to the governing office. 

While the Olympian Court, and Zeus as its head, 
present to our view the weight of political care, and 
are commonly seen working for good the individual 
character of Zeus is of a far lower order than his public 
capacity would lead us to expect. Into this there 
enters almost as much of Falstaff, as of Lear into the 
character of Priam. The basis of it is radically Epi- 
curean. A profound attachment to ease and self-en- 
joyment is its first governing principle. Except for 
his pleasures, and indeed with a view to indulging in 
them, he never disturbs the established order ; and he 
resents in a high degree the fiery restlessness, as well as 
the jealousy 1 , of Here. The sacrificing man is the pious 
man : but the love of Zeus for such men appears to be 
closely associated with the animal enjoyment of the 
libation and the reek 2 . To avoid trouble, he acquiesces 
in the death of Sarpedon, whom he singularly loves : he 
dreads to give offence to the goddess of Night 3 ; and he 
hesitates to grant the request of Thetis, notwithstand- 
ing the debt of gratitude he owes her. And generally 

1 II. i. 562. 2 II. iv. 48, 49 ; xxiv. 69, 70. 3 II. xiv. 261. 



234 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

he hates those gods who trouble him, and in proportion 
as they trouble him ; especially his son Ares 1 . 

He is not, indeed, devoid of affections ; for he is 
moved by pity, now for Agamemnon or a Greek chief- 
tain, now for Priam 2 ; and he is wrung with genuine 
grief, as a father, for Sarpedon, over whom he even 
weeps tears of blood 3 . But he delights to sit on Garga- 
ros, and there to behold the bloody spectacle of the war ; 
he keenly longs to see the ships on fire ; he anticipates a 
lively pleasure from witnessing the very gods in conflict 
with one another 4 . Not only does he rejoice in the 
feast, but he glows with sexual passion, and he is sub- 
ject to the power of Sleep, although that deity can only 
subdue him by working hard, and moreover somewhat 
at his peril, so that Here is obliged to bribe him with a 
high reward, promised under the sanction of an oath 5 . 

In a word, Zeus is the masterpiece of the Homeric 
mythology, if we consider it with reference to that 
humanising or anthropomorphic element, which gave to 
the religion of Greece its specific national character. 



Section II. Here. 

The Here of Homer is a deity of all others the most 
exclusively and intensely national. 

Being such, she is modelled strictly according to that 
anthropomorphic instinct which governed throughout 
the formation of the Olympian system. She is proud, 
passionate, sensual, jealous, vindictive ; but all these in 

1 II. v. 890. 2 II. xxiv. 174. 

3 II. xvi. 459. 4 II. viii. 47-52 ; xv. 600 ; xx. 23. 

5 II. xiv. 233, 236, 252, 268, 359. 



VIII 



] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 2$$ 



strict subordination to the great end, which she pursues 
with unremitting perseverance, the glorification of the 
Greeks. She has no personal or moral preferences, like 
the regard of Athene for Odysseus, founded upon qua- 
lities of character. Zeus is obliged to conceal from her 
the concession which he has made to Thetis on behalf of 
her son, the greatest of Greek warriors, but to the 
detriment of the host at large 1 . She loves Achilles and 
Agamemnon with an equal love 2 ; that is, she loves 
them, not personally, but for their cause. 

Here is a deity much superior to Poseidon, as ex- 
hibiting higher intelligence, with more capacity of far- 
reaching design, and of the adaptation of means to an 
end; matters these, in which we have no manifesta- 
tion of Poseidon's faculties, except in his purely ob- 
stinate persecution of Odysseus, for having used with 
energy the resources of self-defence against a monster 3 . 
Still there is a total absence of moral elements from 
the character as it is presented to us. Angered at the 
lameness of her child Hephaistos, she desires to conceal 
his birth 4 . Zeus charges her with being ready to eat 
Priam and his children raw 5 . She borrows the kestos 
of Aphrodite, and entices Zeus in a scene where 
sensuality is freely used, though as the instrument of 
a deeply laid and artful scheme 6 . The motive assigned 
for her hostility to Troy, is the insult she had suffered 
by the adverse judgment of Paris ~. 

In the Odyssey, she may be said for practical purposes 
entirely to disappear. She is mentioned but seven 
times in the whole poem : thrice, quite incidentally, in 

1 II. i. 545-550. 2 II. i. 196. 3 Od. i. 20. 

4 II. xviii. 495. 5 II. iv. 34-36. 6 II. xiv. 190. 

7 II. xxiv. 27. 






2$6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

a formula where Zeus is called the loud-thundering 
husband of Here, and is himself the true subject of the 
passage • once as the mother of Hebe • and thrice in 
legend or narrative extraneous to the subject of the 
poem. Nor is this unnatural. For, in the domestic 
part of it, there is no question of the Greek nationality : 
while amidst the Phoenician and Eastern associations 
of the Outer Geography, a conception so strictly Hel- 
lenic could have no part to play. 

Though the power of Here is immense, yet she is 
not surrounded with that reverence which the Poet 
always maintains towards Athene and Apollo. She is 
not exempted from the touch of defeat and dishonour. 
She was subjected to ignominious punishment by Zeus, 
who suspended her with her hands in chains, and with 
anvils hanging from her feet 1 . And, in the course of 
her long feud with Heracles, that hero wounded her 
with a three-pronged arrow in the right- breast, and 
caused her to suffer intolerable pain 2 . 

She alone among the deities is called Argeian Here, 
as Helen is called Argeian Helen. In both instances, 
the epithet appears to be founded on the special 
relation between the person to whom it is applied, 
and the head-quarter of Greek power, especially as 
that power was associated with the Argeian name, 
and therefore probably with the period of the Perseids. 
This connection subsisted in Argolis throughout the 
historic period. In the Iliad, Here is said to regard 
the Greeks as her children 3 . She collected the arma- 
ment against Troy 4 . She carried Agamemnon safely 

1 II. xv. 18-21. 2 II. v. 392. 

3 II. xviii. 358. * II. iv. 24-29. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. <2tf 

back to Greece 1 . She conducted Jason and the Argo 
through the terrible rocks 2 , the Planctai, afterwards 
Sumplegades. She hates Heracles, apparently because 
he is in antagonism to the Perseid dynasty 3 . It can 
hardly be from conjugal jealousy, since Jupiter recounts 
his conquests in addressing her on mount Ida. In a 
word, the vigour and activity of her partisanship 
are such, as to make the more dignified conduct of 
Athene seem almost tame by comparison. 

Her rank in Olympos is among the highest: she 
must be supposed to sit by Zeus on one side, as we 
are told Athene did on the other 4 . The gods rise 
from their seats to her as well as to Zeus, when 
she comes among them 5 . At times, she acts imme- 
diately on the thoughts of man ; as when she prompts 
Achilles to call the Assembly of the First Book, in 
order to stay the plague 6 ; or impels Agamemnon 
to stay the victorious course of Hector 7 . At other 
times, Athene is content to be her agent; as when, 
in the debate with Agamemnon, she stays the wrath 
of Achilles 8 . But by way of counterpoise, when the 
two goddesses are about to descend together from 
heaven, it is Here who harnesses the chariot, and 
plays in it the inferior part of driver, while Athene 
bears the Aigis 9 . The promise of her aid against 
Poseidon greatly relieves the mind of Zeus 10 . 

She assumes, like the other higher deities, the 
human form 11 ; and exhibits an extraordinary power 

1 Od. iv. 513. 2 Od. xii. 72. 3 II. xix. 130-133. 

4 II. xxiv. 100. 5 II. xv. 85. 6 II. i. 55. 

7 II. viii. 218. 8 II. i. 194-196: cf.ii. 156; v. 711; viii. 331. 

9 II. v. 745-748. 10 II. xv. 49-52. u II. v. 784-792. 



S38 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

over nature, as if entitled, in virtue of her wifehood, 
to exercise in a manner the attributes of Zeus. Iris is 
her messenger as well as his 1 . Not only does she 
order the Winds 2 , but she sends the sun 3 , in spite of 
his reluctance, to his setting. When, indignant at 
the boast of Hector, she rocks upon her throne 4 , 
Olympos shakes beneath her, as it did under the nod 
of Zeus. She endows the horses of Achilles with a 
voice 5 . And, conjointly with Athene, she thunders in 
honour of the crowning of Agamemnon 6 . 

We learn from a speech of Phoenix, that, together 
with Athene, she can confer valour. The daughters of 
Pandareus she endows both with beauty and with sense, 
while Athene and Aphrodite provide them with indus- 
trial skill and bodily food respectively, and Artemis 
bestows upon them stature 7 . 

Here takes part, with Athene and Poseidon, in the 
great rebellion against Zeus, which all but effected his 
deposition. She had also been personally favoured 
with a special protection, at the time when Zeus 
himself deposed his father Kronos, and thrust him 
into the Underworld. 

Of these two myths, the latter seems to suggest its 
own interpretation. Its scene is fixed in the midst 
of the great Theogonic crisis, at the point of the 
transition from the Pelasgian to the Hellenic or Olym- 
pian system. That was a moment of danger to her ; 
but we read of no such danger to Poseidon. From this 
we may naturally infer that Poseidon had no concern 

1 II. xviii. 168. 

2 This seems the natural construction of Od. iv. 513, and 
xii. 69-72. 3 II. xviii. 239. 4 II. viii. 193. 

5 II. xix. 407. 6 U. xi. 45. 7 Od. xx. 68-72. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. <Zy) 

at all with the Pelasgian system, and was an importa- 
tion from a source altogether distinct. Here, however, 
had a counterpart below, with which she might readily 
have been confounded. In that superseded system we 
find a Tata, or Earth, who, with other Nature-Powers, 
inhabits, and is invoked in, the Underworld. Rescued 
from that danger, and set high in Olympos, she stands 
in marked opposition, as an Hellenic goddess, to the 
older and coarser conception of the same idea, with 
which she is in direct competition. This will account 
for the attitude she holds in the Poems. For here she 
is not only Hellenic, but she is nothing else; and the 
principle and groundwork of her Hellenism seem to be 
an intense untiring hatred of what is Pelasgian by race 
and association, just as if she were the preferred rival 
of an old Pelasgian deity ; as if she had the very root 
of her being in a strong recoil from the superseded 
Nature-Power, into which she might relapse, if Hel- 
lenism were ever swallowed up by a victorious return 
of the Pelasgian worship. Born of the Hellenic re- 
action, its life and hers were bound up together. 

Hence too, in all likelihood, we are to account for 
her place in the legend of the War in heaven. Zeus, 
like Janus, has two faces. When he deposes Kronos, 
he shows us his Hellenic, or Hellic, face. But this 
rebellion is a rebellion of deities, all of them having 
the most marked Hellenic sympathies, which evidently 
run against him in this legend, as the head of the old 
Pelasgian order. 

The functional attribute, specially entrusted to Here 
in her Olympian character, appears to be only that 
of regulating birth, through the medium of the Eili- 
thuiai. This appears to be an ascription derived from 



240 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the original character of the all-producing Earth. And 
the anthropomorphic spirit of the Olympian religion 
is well illustrated by the fact that Homer cuts her off 
from all other production, both animal and vegetable, 
but leaves to her only the bringing of man to birth. 
Human birth bears to Here the same relation, as birth 
generally to Gaia. 

Though the Eilithuiai are mentioned as under the 
control of Here, they were objects of worship ; for the 
pseud-Odysseus mentions the case of Eilithuie at 
Amnisos in Crete 1 . 

On the whole, then, it seems likely that Here, with 
a name representing "Epa, or the earth, is treated 
by Homer with a transformation suited to the anthro- 
pomorphic and personifying spirit of the Olympian 
religion; divorced, as to her personality, from Gaia, 
much as Poseidon is held apart from Nereus, and 
standing towards Gaia as soul to body : the body taking 
its place with the old elemental deities of the Pelas- 
gians in the Underworld, the soul rising to higher 
offices. Here, thus detached from gross matter, carries 
off with her, as to man alone, the great prerogative 
of earth, that she is the all-feeding and all-bearing; 
the Tpa4>epr} } the iioXvfyopfios, the 0epeo-/3io?. Accord- 
ingly, Here becomes, or remains rather than becomes, 
the great mother. She is the wife of Zeus, father of 
gods and men, and she holds among his wives and 
concubines the queenly prerogative, like Hecuba in 
Troy; the mother in heaven of some of his children, 
as Hebe, Ares, and Hephaistos; and, with the Eili- 
thuai for her ministers, the goddess of all motherhood 
on earth 2 . 

1 Od. xix. 188. 2 II. xix. 119. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 241 

This last, indeed, is her only specialty. Those 
other and high prerogatives, which invest her with 
command over Nature, and with the power of direct 
action on the mind, probably accrue to her as the 
consort of Zeus, and are therefore not her original 
gifts, but the reflection of his glory. 

We have, perhaps, in the Theomachy, at least one 
vestige of the prerogative of Here as a Nature-Power. 
It is she who excites Hephaistos against the river 
Xanthos 1 ; and again, the River, parched by fire, makes 
his appeal to her to relieve him from suffering, with 
an engagement which he takes to aid Troy no more, 
not even in its last necessity. Here accedes to his 
prayer, and checks the action of Hephaistos, who 
thereupon desists 2 . It seems as if the ground for 
choosing Here to interpose on this occasion lay in the 
relation between rivers and the Earth along which 
they trace their course. This is the only act of a 
definite nature, with a sensible result performed by 
Here within the limits of Troas, a fact which is again 
in accordance with the construction I have given it, 
and the apparent bias of the Troic religion towards 
Nature-worship." 

Section III. Poseidon. 

The most striking feature of the Homeric Poseidon, 
or rather Poseidaon, is vast force combined with a total 
absence of the higher elements of deity, whether intel- 
lectual or moral. A persistent vindictiveness, indeed, 
we trace as the groundwork of his entire action in 

1 II. xxi. 328-330. 2 lb. 367-381. 



242 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

both the Poems : he hates the Trojans, for the offence 
of Laomedon; he hates Odysseus, because, in the 
strictest self-defence, he had blinded Poluphemos. By 
no worthy word or act is he marked in any part 
either of Iliad or Odyssey, unless it be by some natural 
affection for his descendants, whether they be the 
youthful warriors of the house of Actor 1 , or the savage, 
cruel, atheistic Cyclop. 

One of the three sons of Kronos and Rhea, he comes 
next to Zeus in order of birth 2 . He claims an 
equality 3 of rank ; and avers, that the distribution of 
sovereignties among the three brothers was made only 
by lot. More than indirectly, he asserts equality, as 
well as independence. When admonished by Iris 
that he is junior to Zeus, he acknowledges that there 
is force in the plea, and he withdraws from the plain 
of battle as he had been bid - y but he reserves a right of 
resentment, in case Zeus shall not fulfil the decree 
against Troy. Zeus on his part is delighted at the 
news; and observes, that it would have cost much 
labour to coerce him 4 . Again, it is plain that, in 
the conspiracies against Zeus, he was the acting 
partner. For it is the superiority of his son to him, 
that frustrates the design of the whole party 5 ; and 
when Here attempts to revive the scheme, he pleads in 
reply, not their collective inferiority, but his own 
singly 6 , as if he thought that it was, in point of mere 
force, well-nigh all they would have to rely on. 

Apollo is restrained, in the Theomachy, by a senti- 
ment of respect, from coming to blows with Poseidon, 

1 II. xi. 749-751. 2 II. iv. 174-217. 3 lb. 186-209. 

4 II. iv. 220-235. 5 II. i. 404. 6 II. viii. 211. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 243 

as his paternal uncle *. And a sentiment precisely 
similar prevents Athene in the Odyssey from comfort- 
ing Odysseus by her visible presence, even at her own 
sanctuary in Scherie 2 . 

Though god of the sea, he is not, so to speak, the 
Sea-god, or the Water-god. He has in him nothing of an 
elemental deity. He is not placed in as near a relation 
to water as Zeus is to air, by the epithet AuTreTrjs, and 
the phrase A109 6)x/3po? 3 . These very phrases show us 
that he was not, in Homer's view, the god of moisture, 
or even of water, generally. The attempts to derive 
his name from a common root with 7700-19, c drink,' or 
7rora/xo9, c a river,' would therefore be insufficient or 
inappropriate, even if they were not, as they are, some- 
what equivocal. It is remarkable that, while Poseidon 
supplied a sea-deluge as his contribution towards effacing 
the Greek trench, it was Apollo who turned upon it 
the mouths of all the rivers that descend from Ida 4 ; 
which, when Poseidon had accomplished his labour, 
he in turn sent back again to their proper channels. 

Nereus, the true Sea-god of Homer, gave to the 
element of water that name of nero, in the popular 
speech of the Greeks, which it still retains 5 . He ever 
dwells in the depths of the sea, as if he belonged to 
them, and as if they supplied his atmosphere. But 
Poseidon has a palace there near Aigai, where his 
chariot was kept, where the Poet seems to imply that 
he resided 6 . Yet not exclusively; for he appears at 

1 II. xxi. 468. 2 Od. vi. 329; xiii. 341. 

3 Aii7r€Tr]s = fallen from Zeus. Aios opftpos = Zeus-rain. 
* II. xii. 13-35. 

5 Gomp. the adj. neros, wet, in the late Greek of Phrynichus 
the grammarian, a.d. 180. 6 II. xiii. 15 ; xv. 219. 

R % 



244 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the Olympian Court, on the plain of Troy, on the 
hill-tops of Samothrace \ or on the Solyman 2 moun- 
tains ; and he singly visits the Ethiopians, to partake 
of the sacrifices they offered him 3 . This reference to 
his being worshipped in a distant quarter is the second 
sign we have seen of his foreign origin ; the first was 
the want of definiteness in his position of inferiority 
relatively to Zeus, as though he had been, elsewhere, 
without a superior. 

So again there appears to be in the Outer or Phoe- 
nician system an elemental sea-god, Phorcus, who is 
called ruler of the sea, and after whom a harbour in 
Ithaca is named 4 . 

Prayer appears only to be addressed to him, within 
the Greek world, in the neighbourhood of the sea, as 
by the Envoys in the Ninth Iliad ; and by his own de- 
scendants, as Nestor in the Third Odyssey, who like- 
wise worships by the shore 5 . He can assume the form 
of any man ; can blunt the point of a spear ; can carry 
off his friends, or envelope his opponents in vapour 6 . 
He can inspire vigour into heroes; not immediately, 
however, but by a stroke of his staff 7 . Direct action 
on the mind appears to be beyond his range. The 
storms of the Poems, in the Greek or inner world, are not 
raised by Poseidon. Probably he had not the power to 
raise a storm, though he can break, as the sea does, 
fragments from the rocks of the coast 8 . Storms seem 
to have been regarded as belonging to the province of 

1 II. xiii. ii. 2 Od. v. 283. 

3 Od. i. 22, 25. 4 Od. i. 72 ; xiii. 91 ; II. ix. 183. 

5 Od. iii. 5. Cf. II. xi. 728. 

6 II. xiii. 43, 215 ; xiv. 135 ; xiii. 562 ; xi. 752 ; xx. 321-329. 

7 II. xiii. 59. 8 Od. iv. 506. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. Z\$ 

the air-god. They are imputed to him in a passage of 
the Twenty-fourth Odyssey 1 ; but it would not be alto- 
gether safe, perhaps, to rely on that Book, in a case where 
it seems to vary from the usual order of the Poems. 

If, however, Poseidon was less than the absolute lord 
of water, he was also more. 

i. His possession of the Trident (triaina) could 
hardly be due to a purely maritime sovereignty. •*. 

2. His relation to the horse, which is very per- 
ceptible, though not of primary rank, in Homer 2 , 
and which became almost paramount in the later age, 
cannot be adequately explained by any comparison 
between that animal and the ship, or the wave. 

3. Poseidon is the building-god. 

4. Poseidon stands in close relation to the giants 
and other rebellious personages, who troubled both 
gods and men. 

The existence of these associations for Poseidon, 
inasmuch as they cannot be explained by virtue of his 
place in the Olympian system, again urges us to look 
for the signs of his origin abroad. The key to the 
inquiry is to be found in the Outer world of the Odys- 
sey. For 

1. It is plain that the materials of the narrative, so 
far as the scene of the poem is laid in that Outer world, 
must have been derived by the Poet from the Phoeni- 
cians, who alone frequented the waters beyond the 
iEgean and the Greek coasts. 

2. In the western portion of the Outer sphere, Zeus 
practically disappears from the governing office, and 
Poseidon becomes the supreme ruler. 

We have seen that the subordination of Poseidon to 
1 Od. xxiv. no. 2 II. xxiii. 277, 306, 534. 



246 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Zeus rested on juniority. If Zeus were the chief god 
of the Pelasgian worship, and Poseidon came in with 
the Phoenicians, this poetical arrangement is suitably 
explained; and it exhibits a skilful adaptation to the 
conditions under which the Olympian system was con- 
structed. His rebellion against Zeus, in concert with 
Here and Athene, appears to show that, as new immi- 
grants arrived in Greece, bearing with them their own 
religion, the older system was for a time brought into 
question and endangered as a whole. The delivery of 
Zeus from this rebellion will be considered in connec- 
tion with the goddess Thetis 1 . 

The Greek legends relating to Poseidon are just such 
as we might expect with reference to the god of a nau- 
tical people, touching at many points about the coast 
of Greece. He contends with Helios for Corinth, with 
Athene for Troizen and Athens, with Here for Aigolis, 
with Zeus for iEgina, with Dionusos for Naxos. Even 
in the Greece of Homer we find spots specially conse- 
crated to him in Bceotia, in Eubcea, and in Aigialos. 

Let us now turn to the Voyage of Odysseus in the 
Outer world; which begins with the Lotos-eaters, and 
ends with the Phaiakes of Corfu. Mure 2 suggests that 
their name is a parody of the name Phoinikes : Homer 
paints them as a wealthy, unwarlike people, singularly 
expert in navigation. This apparent incongruity falls 
in with the case of Corfu, if it was then inhabited, as 
it has been in later times, by a stationary, gentle, 
indolent peasantry, and at the same time held by a 
dominant settlement or colony of foreigners, ruling 
it through maritime power. Mure cites Phai'k as a 

1 Infra, sect. xxi. 2 Lit. Hist, of Greece, vol. i. p. 510. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 247 

Semitic word for c magnificent/ and Seller, as meaning 
* an emporium.' 

In this Phoenician or Outer world, Athene, who had 
constantly tended Odysseus while in Troas, and who 
resumes the regular charge of him in Ithaca, systemati- 
cally abstains from helping him ; and wholly disappears 
until Poseidon has, in the Fifth Odyssey, voluntarily 
receded from the scene 1 . She declares that respect to 
her uncle was the motive for her own disappearance 2 , 
The presumption then is that this Outer world was a 
sphere in some way so specially his own, that Athene, 
whose power and prerogatives in Homer are so ex- 
tremely lofty, was unwilling to offer him any opposi- 
tion there. 

Accordingly, we have direct evidence that, in relation 
to the Outer world, Poseidon exercised prerogatives 
which seem not to have belonged to him within the 
Greek sphere. He raised the storm which wrecked 
the raft of Odysseus ; gathering the clouds, which was 
the special function of Zeus, and causing the winds 
to blow 3 . 

Moreover, in the lay of Ares and Aphrodite, it is evi- 
dently Poseidon who presides in the Assembly of the 
gods, and who consequently negotiates with Hephais- 
tos for the relief of Ares from the net of steel. And 
just as, at the beginning of the Second Iliad, the other 
gods were sleeping, but Zeus 4 (who was responsible) 
slept not, so here, while the other deities were laugh- 
ing, Poseidon did not laugh 5 ; as we may suppose, for 
the same reason. And while, on ordinary occasions, 
we are always told that the gods assembled in the 

1 Od. v. 380. 2 Od. xiii. 341. 3 Od. v. 291. 

4 II. ii. 1. 5 Od. viii. 344. 



248 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

XaXKoftarh 5<S of Zeus, here the words c of Zeus ' are 
omitted 1 . 

Undoubtedly the name of Zeus appears from time to 
time in those Books of the Odyssey which describe 
the wanderings of Odysseus ; but his governing office 
disappears until, in the end of the Twelfth Book, he 
acts at the instance of Helios (the Sun), and on behalf 
of the Olympian Court. It is not the abstract, but the 
working supremacy of Poseidon, which the Poem seems 
to show. At the same time, the question might be 
raised whether, as in the later and extraneous tradi- 
tion the name Zeus was often united with that of 
Poseidon (as much as to say ' Zeus the supreme deity, 
in the form and under the name of Poseidon'), so 
here the word may not improbably have the general 
force of c god,' rather than the personal meaning of a 
particular god. Even in Homer, Aidoneus is called 
the Zeus of the Underworld ; and so Poseidon may be 
the Zeus of the sea and the sea-regions. And it is very 
notable that in Od. v. 302-304, Odysseus ascribes to 
Zeus that very storm, which we are expressly told that 
Poseidon had raised. 

We have therefore very strong indications from the 
text of Homer that Poseidon was the god, or the chief- 
god, of the Phoinikes ; and if he was, then, upon their 
arrival in Greece, he could only be incorporated into 
the Greek system by some such method as Homer has 
adopted, in giving him at once a parity and a disparity 
with Zeus. 

Thus the Outer geography affords us the strongest 
evidence of the Phoenician origin of Poseidon. It 

1 Od. viii. 321. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 349 

shows us more than this, as will be seen when we 
treat of the position of Helios in Homer. 

The view now taken is in harmony with the evi- 
dence supplied from other sources respecting Poseidon. 
Herodotus, deriving the names of the other Greek gods 
from Egypt, excepts Poseidon. History shows abun- 
dantly the prevalence of Poseidonian worship among the 
Phoenicians and their colonial progeny. Diodorus 1 
says an altar to Poseidon was built at the northern 
extremity of the Red Sea, where was a promontory 
called Poseideibn, and a grove of palms (Phoinikes). 
In the war with Gelon, Hamilcar, general of the Car- 
thaginians, offered to Poseidon a magnificent sacrifice, 
with a view to success in what were mainly land opera- 
tions. Again, while sacrificing a boy to Kronos, he 
threw into the sea a crowd of victims in honour of 
Poseidon 2 . Later in the historic period, when Scipio 
attacks Carthago Nova, he assures his army that he 
has the favour of Poseidon made known to him in a 
dream 3 ; that is to say, that the foe was deserted by 
his own national and proper god. Pausanias, again, 
shows us the worship of Poseidon practised in parts of 
Greece, whither it never could have come had he been 
regarded as a mere sea-god; and nowhere more than 
in Arcadia. Manifestly, if he were the chief and dis- 
tinctive god of the Phoenician nationality, it is pro- 
bable that, as that acute race penetrated for traffic into 
Greece, they would carry with them their worship as 
they went. And again, in many of the local legends 
related by that author, which afford evidence of a 
very trustworthy kind, we find Poseidon possessed of 

1 Diod. Sic. iii. 41. 2 lb. xi. 21 ; xiii. 86. 

3 Polyb. Bk. x. 11. 7 ; 14. 12. 



250 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

attributes which, in the established religion of Hellas, 
belonged properly to Zeus 1 . 

Let us now endeavour to examine the special and 
separate attributes of Poseidon, already enumerated, 
in the light of his Phoenician associations. 

With respect to the Trident, an instrument so un- 
suited to water, it appears evidently to point to some 
tradition of a Trinity, such as may still be found in 
various forms of Eastern religion, other than the He- 
brew. It may have proceeded, among the Phoenicians, 
from the common source of an older tradition ; and this 
seems more probable than its direct derivation from 
the Hebrews, with whom, however, we know that the 
Phoenicians had intercourse. 

Though the relation of Poseidon to the horse is not 
explained by his connection with Phoenicia, yet, as this 
connection points to his supremacy, and thus gives him 
wider associations than those of a merely maritime 
deity, it opens a field from which the true explanation 
may yet be gathered. I have suggested elsewhere a 
solution of the problem 2 . 

Reference to what has been already said of the Phoi- 
nikes will show that the relation of Poseidon to them 
at once explains his character as the building-god. 

Lastly, with regard to the giants and monsters. The 
facts are as follows. 

The Cyclops, a godless race, are his children 3 . The 
impious giants are declared to be of the kindred of the 
gods 4 : this is probably through Poseidon. By the 

1 See ' Phoenicia and Greece,' in the Quarterly Review of 
Jan. 1868. 

2 Supra, Phoenicians, chap. v. 3 Od. ix. 275, 412. 
4 Od. vii. 205, 206. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 25 1 

daughter of their king and arch-tempter Eurumedon, 
he was the father of the royal house of Scherie 1 . These 
giants the wicked and cruel Laistrugones are said to 
resemble 2 . By Iphimedeia, he was the father of Otos 
and Ephialtes, those monster-youths 3 who heaped up 
the mountains, and perished by the hands of Apollo. 
He was also the father of Briareus (called likewise 
Aigaion), who, however, took part against him 4 . 

The effort of the two youths recalls the traditions of 
the Tower of Babel, and of the War in Heaven. 

Two considerations may be noticed, which tend to 
account for the place of Poseidon as the Phoenician 
god, in relation to many rebellious and unruly spirits. 

First, the rough manners of a sea-faring and bucca- 
neering people. Down to the time of Cicero and of 
the Roman Empire, a rude and ruffian-like character 
was called Neptuni filius. 

Secondly, and in possible connection with what has 
just been said, Syria was inhabited by Canaanites ; and 
it has been observed that the names given in Scripture 
to that race indicate great stature and physical force, 
which became the basis of a tradition that they were a 
race of giants 5 . To the Greek mind this would very 
naturally convey that they were children of Poseidon as 
the Phoenician god. In a word, the Phoenician origin 
of Poseidon, and that only, appears to supply a key to 
his position and attributes, such as they are shown in 
the Olympian system. 

1 Od. vii. 56-60. 2 Od. x. 120. 3 Od. xi. 305-320. 

* II. i. 401-406. 5 Le Normant, vol. ii. p. 244. 



252 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 



Section IV. Ai'doneus. 

The figure of Ai'doneus, or Aides, is one of the most 
obscure in the whole Homeric mythology. Yet here 
too there is, as I think, a reward for patient observa- 
tion • and a clue is to be found which may enable us 
to trace him home to his origin, as a Nature-Power 
of an older theogony, rather than what he might at 
first sight appear to be, little more than a shadowy 
creature of the Poet's imagination. 

The particulars respecting him in the Poems are 
but few. 

He was one of the deities who suffered at the hand 
of man: namely, of Heracles 1 . Now the associations 
of Heracles in Homer are Hellenic, as we may per- 
ceive from the co-operation of Athene with him * and 
therefore this legend, so far as it goes, tends to place 
Ai'doneus beyond the line of pure Hellenic tradition. 
It is true, that Heracles also assaulted Here : but the 
enmity between them was special, and founded on the 
jealousy of the goddess in favour of the ruling house 
of the Perseids. 

Heracles shot this god in the shoulder with an arrow 
at Pulos, not of Messenia but of Elis, according to Pau- 
sanias 2 j and laid him prostrate among the dead, huge 
as he was. He rose, went to Olympos, and was cured 
by Paieon 3 . 

Though a deity of the Underworld 4 , he is the bro- 
ther of Zeus, having shared in the partition of the 
universe by lot. He is therefore adopted, like Posei- 

1 II. v. 395. 2 vi. 25. 3. 

3 II. v. 398-402. * II. xv. 187, 191. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2$$ 

don, into the Olympian Court, and becomes entitled 
to appear in the Hellenic heaven, though supposed 
usually to abide in the Shades. 

His action in the Poems is singularly faint ; an 
arrangement of which we shall see the probable reason. 
During the battle of the gods, he trembles 1 lest the 
earth-shaker Poseidon should split the ground, and ex- 
hibit the nether region, where he is lord {anax\ through 
the chasm. This shuddering may be said to be the 
single action ascribed to him in the Poems. 

We have, however, passages illustrative of his cha- 
racter and functions. Stern and inexorable, he is to 
men the most hateful of all the gods 2 . This declara- 
tion is curiously illustrated by the after history of the 
Olympian system. In all Greece, says Pausanias 3 , 
there is no single temple of Aides, except at a single 
spot of Elis, where, according to tradition, he fought on 
the side of the Pulians against Heracles. And this 
temple was opened once a year 3 : C I suppose,' adds 
Pausanias, c because men die but once/ This perhaps 
would have been a more apt reason if men had died 
once a year. 

He is also called the strong 4 , the hateful or loath- 
some (oruyepo's 5 ), the gate-closer Q , and in a recurring 
formula, the horse-famous (kA^t-ottcoAos?). 

Though he is the king of the world below, he seems 
to exercise no active power there : throughout the Ele- 
venth Odyssey, the duties of government are in the 
hands of Persephone, who also has, by the shores of 
Okeanos, the grove of worship. Odysseus, indeed, 

1 II. xx. 6 1. 2 II. i. 158. 3 Paus. as already cited. 

* Od. x. 534; xi. 47, 276. 5 II. viii. 368. 

6 II. viii. 367. 7 II. v. 654; xi. 445 ; xvi. 625. 



254 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

offered to him prayer and sacrifice, together with her, 
in the Underworld 1 : but there is no sign of his having 
any established worship upon earth. 

The helmet of Aides was used by Athene 2 to make 
herself invisible to Ares. We hear of this helmet in 
Hesiod, as worn by Perseus 3 . It appears to be a symbol 
of darkness. 

Twice, however, this deity comes before us in the 
legend of Phoenix. In the war of Caludon, Althaia, 
invoking woes on Meleagros, beats the earth with her 
hands, as she calls on Aides and Persephone ; and she 
is heard and answered from beneath by the Erinus 4 . 
In the other passage the process is reversed. The 
father of Phoenix calls upon the Erinus, and c the gods' 
fulfil his imprecation, c and Zeus of the Underworld, 
and Persephone the awful •' perhaps meaning this, that 
these are the gods to whom he refers. 

Of this dualism in the exercise of the penal office I 
shall speak elsewhere. But the name here given to 
Aides is very remarkable : he is the Zeus of the Under- 
world. How comes he by this title ? At first sight it 
indicates some very close relation between him and 
the traditions of Zeus in some one of their forms ; for 
Poseidon is never called the Zeus of the sea, al- 
though, as we have seen, he carries strong marks of 
supremacy in the Outer world. 

The part he takes at Pulos seems to mean that he 
was the old god of the country, and the patron of the 
inhabitants in their struggles against the invading 
Heracles. The epithet c huge' further tends to asso- 
ciate him with the old Nature-Powers. The con- 

1 Od. xi. 43-46. 2 II. v. 845. 

3 Scut. Here. 227. 4 II. ix. 563-572. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2$$ 

tinuance of his worship at Pulos in the historic period, 
when it had disappeared in all other places, is probably 
to be taken as an indication, that Elis was even in the 
earliest times a religious centre for Greece, and that 
Pulos was the head-quarters of the system, so far as 
Aidoneus was concerned. 

We shall see that, in the worship of Dodona, there 
was a Dione, associated as queen with the Pelasgian 
Zeus. This Dione, to make room for Here, disap- 
pears from active relations to mankind, and becomes a 
sort of lay-figure in Olympos. 

Was there, then, a residuum of the tradition of the 
Pelasgian Zeus, after the Olympian Zeus had been fully 
conceived and established ? And, as Gaia, or Demeter, 
or both, represent such a residuum in the case of Here, 
does Aidoneus represent it in the case of Zeus 1 ? 

This would be an adjustment in full analogy with 
Homer's general method. And it would at once ac- 
count for the extremely faint outline which he has 
given to the figure of his Aidoneus, and for his giving 
the executive office in the Underworld to Persephone. 
As he keeps back Demeter, that she may not compete 
with Here, so he would keep back Aidoneus, that he 
might not compete with Zeus. 

Plutarch 2 has preserved a tradition, which seems to 
supply a missing link, respecting an Aidoneus, who was 
king of the Moiossians ; and he thus connects the name 
with the neighbourhood of Dodona. This Aidoneus 
releases Theseus, his prisoner, at the request of Heracles.: 
a transaction afterwards transferred to the nether world. 
Thus one great Hellic personage obtains from him the 

1 Kreuzer, Symbolik, iv. 477. 2 Thes. c. 35. 



2 $6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

release of another, which accords with the idea of his 
priority in time. 

Althaias's beating the earth would lead to the conclu- 
sion, that A'idoneus must have sprung from some tra- 
dition of an earth-god, and not an air-god. Hesiod, 
the Pelasgian poet, directs the husbandman to pray to 
him, as well as to Demeter, to prosper the fruits of the 
earth 1 . 

It is, I suppose, possible that at some period the 
rude religion of the Pelasgians, not yet having ar- 
rived at the Egyptian idea of Air and Earth, as repre- 
senting respectively the active and the passive prin- 
ciple, may have conceived of Earth as its own supreme 
deity. At any rate the relation of A'idoneus to the 
Zeus of Dodona appears to rest on probable evidence. 

And if so, then the argument for considering A'ido- 
neus as an earth-Zeus, rather than as an air-Zeus, is 
certainly recommended by various probable suggestions. 
The general appearance of the aggregate phenomena of 
Nature- or Element -worship in Homer, and also in 
Hesiod, is by no means such as to fall into a single 
consistent whole, and appears to imply that more than 
one theogony, or scheme of deity and religion, had pre- 
ceded the Olympian system. It is almost certain, that 
a plurality of such schemes must have presented discre- 
pancies one with another. 

Moreover, when we regard Zeus as an air-god, he 
stands in the relation of the active Nature-Power to 
Earth as the female and passive one. Now this was 
the notion embodied in the Egyptian system, which 
may have been carried, in accordance with the report 

1 Opp. 436 ; Dollinger, Heid. und Jud. p. 80. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 1$] 

of Herodotus, and either directly or mediately, from 
Egypt to Dodona. But it is an idea implying a certain 
refinement, an action of the speculative mind in the 
discernment of cause and effect. An entirely rude 
people might perhaps be more likely to associate its 
idea of a God with the earth, of which the sur- 
face constantly tells them a tale of life, while from 
its bosom spring the stores that sustain their bodily 
existence. 



Section V. Leto. 

I think that every one who carefully examines the 
text of Homer with reference to the picture there given 
of Leto, must be struck alike by the slightness and by 
the dignity of its outline • and, I may add, by the 
absence (as far as I know) of any satisfactory attempt 
to find for her an origin in any pre-existing tradition, 
either of the Pelasgian Nature-worship, or of the Assy- 
rian or Egyptian systems. Without origin, without 
function, she seems to be a mother, and nothing more 
than a mother ; yet she is elevated into a commanding 
position in the Homeric system by the transcendant 
dignity of her son Apollo. 

The only epithets given to Leto in the poems are of 
a character entirely general : glorious 1 , right-glorious 2 , 
lovely-cheeked 3 , lovely-haired 4 . 

Her action in the poems is extremely circumscribed 
She appears in the temple of Apollo, as his minister, 
with her daughter Artemis, to nurse and tend iEneas 5 . 

1 Od. xi. 580. 2 II. xiv. 327. 3 II. xxiv. 607. 

* II. i. 36. 5 II. v. 447. 



258 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

She never performs any governing office of any kind, 
either upon nature or upon man ; though she looks with 
delight upon Artemis sporting in the wild wood 1 . 
When she appears in the Theomachy on the Trojan 
side, and we are in hopes of finding a link to con- 
nect her with some definite prerogatives, we find the 
Poem so contrived, that the door is at once closed 
upon our curiosity by her release from the necessity 
of combat. 

With this blankness and faintness, let us now com- 
pare the high ascriptions of her dignity. It is a great 
note of honour, that this inactive and hindward deity 
should find a place in the Theomachy, from which 
Demeter and Aphrodite are excluded. Hermes is her 
opponent. But when the time for action comes, he 
declines the fight : he will not lay hands on the spouse 
of Zeus : he gives her free leave to proclaim that she 
has worsted him. She makes no reply 2 . Again, it is 
the insult to Leto as the mother of only a pair, that 
is so fearfully avenged on Niobe and her children 3 . 
And Tituos, the son of Gaia, is tortured in Tartaros, 
because he sought to offer her violence as she was 
proceeding to the Pythian temple of her son 4 . In 
the ascending scale of the mothers of his offspring, 
she is placed by Zeus after Demeter and next to 
Here 5 . 

Hesiod marries her to Zeus before Here ; which, con- 
sidering the supreme rank of Here in Olympos, appears 
to be the mark of some very old tradition. She is 
junior, among the consorts he assigns to Zeus, only to 
Metis, or the Spirit of Counsel. She is there made the 

1 Od. vi. 106. 2 II. xxi. 497-50T. 3 II. xxiv. 607. 

4 Od. xi. 580. 5 II. xiv. 327. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 259 

daughter of a Titan ; and, in the Hymn to Apollo, she 
appears as a sister of Zeus, and a daughter of Kronos 
himself. But, colourless as she is in her own being, all 
this seems to be a marked reflection from the dignity 
of Apollo. 

Some have explained this mute yet lofty personage 
in conformity, as they think, with the etymology of the 
name; and they regard Leto as the impersonation of 
Night, - and Night as the mother from whose womb 
Day, or the Sun, is produced. The etymology appears 
to be uncertain : yet there may be no great difficulty in 
supposing an affinity between Leto and lateo, and a 
derivation from the root lath 1 . Nor is it any con- 
clusive objection to this theory, that we have already 
a goddess of Night in Homer 2 . For this might be the 
obsolete Nature-Power, standing in the same relation 
to an impersonated Leto, as Gaia, or as De meter, to 
Here. The idea that the Night is the mother of the 
Sun, and also is the Moon, does not seem to be an 
idea much more likely to commend itself to the Greek 
mind than to represent Chaos as the parent of Cos- 
mos, anarchy of order. At the same time it is con- 
ceivable that such an idea might find place in a 
scheme of Nature-worship. Nor was Apollo united 
with the Sun in the Olympian scheme of Homer. But, 
when we perceive the immense reverence accorded to 
a personage who is without any attribute or office in 
the poems except motherhood, we cannot but refer to 
the motherhood the dignity itself. 

It is quite possible, though it is not proved, that 
there may have been in the Pelasgian or in some other 
mythology, a personage who may be the base of the 

1 Liddell and Scott, in voc. \av6dv<o. 2 II. xiv. 261. 

S 2 



260 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Homeric Leto, just as there are deities who form the 
base, or a base, of his Apollo. But as the properties 
attaching to his Apollo appear to be of an order too 
high to be justly accounted for by anything we find 
in mere mythology, so, and even more, we are driven 
to seek outside the limits of the system a mode of 
accounting for the majesty and reverence, with which 
the Leto of Homer is surrounded. 

But if in Apollo there are exhibited, together with 
other matter, the features of that tradition of a Deli- 
verer, divine, and yet in human form, which was 
handed down through the line of Patriarchs, and en- 
shrined in the Sacred Scriptures, we have to bear in 
mind that this Deliverer was emphatically described as 
the Seed of the Woman. Whether by the woman was 
meant His mother, or Eve, the general mother of our 
race, is immaterial to our present purpose. What 
appears obvious is that, if such a tradition imparted 
its glory to the character of Apollo, it could hardly fail 
to shed a portion of collateral lustre upon the person, 
in whom the human descent was signified and fore- 
shadowed. And it would be no matter of wonder, if 
the human figure of such a person were elevated to the 
Olympian Court, whose manifold orders made such ad- 
mission easy, and whose anthropomorphic principle 
tended to efface or weaken the lines of separation 
between its divinities and mortal man. 

I conclude, therefore, that in Leto we have a record, 
and a sufficiently clear indication, whether wrought 
into the texture of any current mythological legend, 
or otherwise, of the Hebrew tradition respecting the 
Woman, of whose seed the Deliverer of mankind was 
to be. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2,6l 



Section VI. Demeter. 

The text of Pausanias exhibits by its enumeration 
of temples and remains, though it does not explain, 
the widespread prevalence and the great local import- 
ance of the worship of Demeter in Greece. And this 
picture stands in marked contrast with her insignifi- 
cance in the action of the Homeric Poems, and in the 
Olympian system. 

We may safely assign to her one of the twenty 
chairs or thrones l 3 wrought for the Assemblies of Im- 
mortals in the palace of Zeus. But she nowhere 
appears as taking part in those Assemblies. She has 
no place in the Theomachy or in the War. She is never 
mentioned in the Poems except incidentally. 

The actual Homeric evidence concerning Demeter 
is as follows : — 

i. Ground corn, or meal, is called A^TJrepos clktti, as 
fire (or flame) is called <£Ao£ 'H^aurroio 2 . This is one 
of the proper associations of a Nature-Power. 

2. She is the companion of Zeus in one of the con- 
nections, which he relates in II. xiv. 326. Her child 
is not named by the Poet either there or elsewhere. 
But, in the later tradition, we find associated with her 
in local worship, under the name of Core, the Damsel, 
a great and even awful personage, who thus fills the 
gap indicated by Homer, and who probably is repre- 
sented by his Persephone, queen of the Underworld. 
Certainly the two have a marked correspondence in 
character. 

1 II. xviii. 373. 2 II. xiii. 322 ; xxi. 76. 



26~2 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

3. She has a re/uteros at Purasos in Thessaly 1 , and 
these land-endowments, as far as we can discern from 
Homer, were Pelasgian. 

4. She is termed evirXoKafios and £avdri, fair-haired, 
and golden-haired, doubtless with reference to the idea 
beautifully expressed by Tibullus 2 : c Deponit flavas an- 
nua terra comas. 3 

5. She felt and gave way to a passion for a son or 
descendant of Iasos; and this took place among the 
fields 3 . The name of Iasos is obscure, but seems to 
be certainly older than the Hellenes. Hesiod enlarges 
the tradition, and says this event came about in Crete, 
a country at least partially marked with strong Pelasgic 
features 4 . This powerful element of lust in her charac- 
ter tends further to detach her, as a goddess, from 
Hellenic associations. 

6. She presides over the operation of winnowing ; 
and threshing-floors are consecrated to her 5 . 

The later tradition, testifying to an extensively estab- 
lished worship of Demeter, places the most noted seat 
of it in Attica, which is an eminently Pelasgian dis- 
trict, with Eleusis for its head-quarter. 

In the Hymn to Demeter, she herself founds that 
worship; and reports herself as having come thither, 
but unwillingly 6 , from Crete. This tradition may point 
to the epoch when the Phoenicians acquired the domi- 
nion of Crete. It certainly points to some decisive 
change tending to displace her worship. 

Pausanias 7 states, that there was in his time a temple 
of Demeter Pelasgis at Corinth. 

Diodorus 8 reports that she merely represents the cha- 

1 II. ii. 696. 2 ii. 1. 48. 3 Od. v. 125. * Theog. 971. 
5 II. v. 499-502. 6 v. 123. 7 ii. 22.2. 8 i. 13. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLVMPOS. 263 

racter of Isis in the Egyptian mythology; that is to 
say, as earth-goddess and inventress of cultivation. 

We have indeed three Homeric personages, all of 
whom appear to be related to the old tradition of 
Nature-worship, which made Earth a deity, and a fe- 
male deity 1 . The share of Demeter in that tradition 
is established by her attributes in connection with 
food, and by her name of Tij fJO]Trjp, Mother-earth. 

Detached as this is from Hellenic associations, we 
cannot be surprised at our not finding her among the 
Hellenising divinities of the War. Nor is it very diffi- 
cult to conjecture a reason, why she could not conve- 
niently appear among those who were allies of Troy : 
namely this, that in Greece her personality had been 
sufficiently severed from that of Gaia, the Earth-god- 
dess proper, by the relegation of Gaia to the Under- 
world, and probably by the prevalence of her local wor- 
ship, to allow her a place in Olympos; but in Troas 
it would seem that this severance may not have been 
effected, and that the Earth-goddess was worshipped 
under her own name, like, and together with, the Sun 2 . 

Perhaps the same line of thought may carry us to the 
reason, why Demeter appears to us without a daughter, 
and Persephone, the Awful, without a mother. For Per- 
sephone is the queen of that dark region in which Gaia 
dwells: but, as being an Hellenic deity, she cannot 
have a Pelasgian Nature-Power for her mother. Neither 
can she be made by Homer the daughter of Demeter, 
because Demeter herself bears' many signs of charac- 
ter which associate her with Gaia, but which are wholly 
absent from the picture of Persephone. 

We find in the Albanian language the same form 
1 See supra, p. 239. 2 II. iii. 104. 



264 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

for the Earth as in Demeter, dew 1 : though it is com- 
bined with a form not found in that tongue, which 
gives us memme^ and other like forms, for mother. 

The Demeter of Homer, then, seems to be a figure 
partially Hellenised, principally of Pelasgian concep- 
tion, and having parts of its material in Eastern 
tradition. 

In Athens, and in Olympia, her statue stood by that 
of Zeus 2 : and, according to Herodotus, the Scythians 
treated her as his consort. This is probably no more 
than the mythological impersonation given to the earth 
as the female or passive principle, subjected to the 
action of air, light, and sky. 

Section VII. Dione. 

We find Dione present in Olympos, when Aphrodite 
arrives there after her wound, and ^s received as her 
daughter 3 . She was therefore one of the wives of 
Zeus, who expressly owns Aphrodite as his child 4 : and 
she, again, expressly names herself as one of the 
Olympian gods 5 . To console Aphrodite, she relates 
how Ares had suffered at the hands of Otos and Ephi- 
altes, Here and Aides at the hands of Heracles. But 
there is nothing in the passage to throw light upon the 
origin of Dione herself; and it is the only passage of 
Homer, in which she appears. 

We learn however from Hesiod 6 , that Dione was 
one of the daughters of Okeanos and Tethus. These 
daughters were sisters to the Rivers. Pherecydes, an 

1 Hahn, Alb. Stud. Lexicon. 2 lb. p. 251. 

3 II. v. 371, 373- Ml. v. 428. Ml. v. 383. 

6 Theog. 353. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 2,6$ 

Athenian logographer of the fifth century before Christ, 
represented her as one of the Nymphs of Dodona 1 . The 
coins of Epiros show the head of a Zeus of Dodona, 
the Pelasgian Zeus, crowned with oak-leaf 2 , an asso- 
ciation sustained by that passage of the Odyssey which 
refers to the oak, from which the oracles were deli- 
vered 3 . Together with the head of Zeus on these 
coins is a crowned female head, which cannot be the 
head of Here, as she belongs only to the Hellenic 
traditions. Strabo 4 says that Dione shared the temple 
of Zeus at Dodona. 

By combining together the fragments of this infor- 
mation, we may come with reasonable evidence to the 
conclusion, that Dione was of the family of Nature- 
Powers j and that in this character she was associated 
with the elder Zeus of the Pelasgians, the air-god, as 
his wife. Some will have it, that she was the mother 
of Persephone. In Homer, the line between the dei- 
ties of the Underworld and of Olympos is broad, and 
not easily crossed : but Dione is the mother of Aphro- 
dite, and the traditions of Aphrodite, of Persephone, 
and of Artemis, undoubtedly intermix. Upon the case 
of Dione, we may make the general observation, that 
Homer does not pursue an uniform method of dealing 
with the divinities of all the old Theogonies. The darker 
and grosser of them, related to the earth, pass into the 
Underworld. But Okeanos remains, I suppose, in the 
Ocean-River; and Nereus, we know, inhabits the sea- 
depth, with his family. The water of rivers is bound 
by the epithet Diipetes to the realm and to the idea of 
the air-god : and of the rivers Dione was the reputed 

1 Creuzer, Symbolik, iv. 157. 2 lb. iv. 156. 

3 Od. xix. 297. * Strabo, b. vii. p. 329 C. 



266 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

sister. Therefore, like the air-god himself, she perhaps 
was sufficiently ethereal in her composition to pass, 
though but as a dimly-drawn and unimportant person- 
age, into the Olympian court. 



Section VIII. Athene and Apollo. 

These two are by far the most remarkable personages 
who adorn the Olympos of Homer ; and the features, 
which they possess in common, are so much more 
numerous and significant than any by which they may 
be separated, that it will be convenient to treat them 
together for the purpose of bringing those common 
features into view. Such differences as subsist between 
them are much more in function, than in character. 

But I speak only of their features as shown in the 
Homeric text. It is perfectly possible that they may 
severally represent in singleness groups of traditions 
which either had been, or which afterwards became, the 
property of more than one mythological personage. The 
names of these may be wholly distinct, and their places, 
outside the Homeric mythology, far apart. But the 
self-consistency of each of them, upon the page of Homer, 
is scarcely less remarkable than their mutual relation ; 
a relation which at one and the same time both 
associates them with one another, and severs them from 
most of the other members of the Olympian Court. 

Their action, however, in the Poems is so extensive 
and multiform, that it will not be possible to exhibit all 
its particulars : nor is there the same need for such an 
operation as in cases where the evidence is scanty. 

Still, it is the more needful to make a comprehensive 



VIII.]' THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 267 

and accurate survey of their attributes and offices, be- 
cause upon the cases of these two deities will mainly 
turn the answer to be given to ' the interesting and im- 
portant question, whether there is or is not any sensible 
infusion into the Homeric system of the ideas related to 
the redemption of mankind, which have been preserved 
in the Holy Bible and among the Hebrews, and which 
may be termed for convenience Messianic. To their 
case, however, that of Leto is an important auxiliary. 

1. Unless we explain their position in the Olympian 
system by the aid of the Hebrew traditions, it offers to 
our view a hopeless solecism. The Olympian gods are 
arranged generally in two generations. The really 
great governing powers are given to the elder of the 
two, to Zeus, Poseidon, and to Here ; with a parity of 
dignity, though not of influence, to Ai'doneus. All the 
three first, in one way or other, are representations of 
some conception of the Supreme Being which had pre- 
vailed elsewhere, or at an earlier epoch. But Athene 
and Apollo present no such character- and, standing 
as they do in the junior line, we are obliged to ask, why 
do these two junior deities alone, and in a manner 
which cannot be mistaken, share and exercise the pre- 
rogatives of supreme deity and government ? Inferior 
only in some respects to Zeus, they show no inferiority 
in any, and in some a marked superiority, to Here or 
Poseidon. 

It is true indeed that both Athene and Apollo recog- 
nise the rights of the Uncle, as the Senior, in Poseidon. 
And, if I am right in considering him as having been the 
supreme god of a foreign mythology, who was afterwards 
naturalised in the Hellenic system, we may readily 
understand why, notwithstanding the coarse material 



268 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CH 



.IP. 



of his being, he, too, is always shielded from palpable 
dishonour. Yet neither is he suffered to inflict any 
disgrace or shame on Athene or Apollo. In the case of 
Apollo, the two part without fighting 1 . In the case of 
Athene, Poseidon withdraws when Odysseus is about 
to pass beyond the special sphere of that god 2 ; and the 
goddess then resumes the conduct of the affairs of the 
hero, and guides them to a happy issue. And when, in 
the disguise of Mentor, she attends the sacrifice of 
Nestor, and offers prayer to Poseidon, the Poet adds, 
c so she prayed ; and of herself accomplished all the 
prayer 3 . 5 

Yet more notable is the relation of rank as between 
Here and Athene. Once Athene appears, namely in 
the Debate of the First Book, as the messenger of 
Here, to prevent the wrath of Achilles from bursting 
into flagrant violence 4 : as though Here had a title 
to employ her services. Yet, even in this case, Here, 
it should be remarked, supplies no instructions; and 
Athene frames her discourse after her own will, and 
with no regard to the special inclination of Here for 
Agamemnon. But elsewhere Homer has not scrupled 
to give to Athene the first place. Twice the goddesses 
descend together from Olympos to the field of battle, 
in the chariot of Here. It is Here who yokes the 
horses, and acts as charioteer. Athene not only mounts 
as the warrior beside her, but bears the Aigis of su- 
preme power 5 . 

When Thetis arrives at Olympos, in the Twenty- 
fourth Iliad, she receives the honours of a guest, and is 
placed by the side of Zeus, Athene giving way to her. 

1 II. xxi. 468. z Od. v. 380. 3 Od. iii. 55-62. 

4 II. i. 195. 5 II. v. 711-752; viii. 381-396. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 269 

She probably held the second seat of rank on the left 
side, the first being, as we need not doubt, given to 
Here. It is Here, again, who sends the Sun to his 
repose \ On the whole, an ingenious division of ascrip- 
tions seems to be carried through, by means of which 
Here has the higher place in the internal relations of 
Olympos, but Athene far excels in all that immedi- 
ately touches the government of men. 

And now as to the dignity of Apollo. 

In the ancient Hymn to this god, cited by Thucy- 
dides, it is told that the gods rise from their seats as 
he comes near 2 . 

The superiority thus awarded to Apollo cannot be 
accounted for by anything in the mere order of Olym- 
pos, which it seems, indeed, to contravene. The child 
of Leto the obscure is preferred to the child of great 
Here. In a time of wild men and deeds, a god pre- 
siding over peaceful functions infinitely outshines the 
god of war. We must seek for the reason, then, in 
traditions flowing from another source. 

2. In the Fifth Iliad, Homer appears to inform us, 
that Athene was born of Zeus without a mother 3 : a 
statement afterwards developed in the legend, which 
represents her as having sprung full-grown from his 
head. Now if the Hellenes had preserved the tradition 
of the Logos, it was impossible to clothe it, for the 
purposes of their system, in a more appropriate form. 
If they had not, how comes it that we have this one 
only exception made to the accustomed method of 
parentage ? — a method so deeply ingrained in the Greek 
ideas, that even for Zeus a father must be found. 

But Apollo is the child of Leto ; and Leto, if we can 

1 II. xviii. 239. 2 Hymn, 2-4. 3 II. v. 880. 



270 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

give the word a meaning, means darkness or oblivion. 
If Apollo be considered as the Sun, the name of his 
mother may signify his birth from Night. But the 
Apollo of Homer's Olympos is not the Sun ; and of his 
functions a very large portion have no relation to the 
Night whatever. But if Homer saw in his Apollo a 
son of his Zeus, whose filial relation rested upon tra- 
ditions anterior to any which the current mythologies 
supplied, and if the word Leto expressed such an ob- 
scurity, this surely appears to supply a rational and 
consistent explanation. 

Thus the differences between the birth of Athene 
and that of Apollo, according to Homer, correspond 
with the differences between the two forms of the 
Messianic tradition represented respectively in the 
Logos, and the Son of the Woman. 

3. But while the rank and the power of these deities 
were traceable to those of Zeus in the Olympian sys- 
tem, it is plain that their dignity, their sanctitas, 
was greater than his. They were regarded with a 
more unmixed reverence, as if the traditions relating 
to them had been kept more free from earthy elements. 
These propositions do not rest merely on the general 
mode of handling them in Homer, but upon distinct 
and well-defined notes. They are never exhibited in 
the mood of sensual passion, like Zeus and Here, to 
say nothing of lesser deities. This is true, without 
the least qualification, of Athene. Apollo is stated to 
have carried up Marpessa the bride of Ideus 1 ; and he 
enters into the ribald jesting of Olympos in the Lay of 
the Net 2 . But the latter story, as has already been 
observed, is conceived in the spirit of a foreign myth- 
1 II. iv. 559-564. 2 Od. viii. 334. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2JI 

ology; and with respect to Marpessa, it may be re- 
marked, that the numerous intrigues of the mythical 
gods in Homer are never accompanied with violence, 
but are invariably made to appear as connections volun- 
tarily accepted; while again they are always attended 
with the birth of children. In both particulars this story 
differs from them, and it much more resembles that of 
Ganymede 1 , who was carried up to be cup-bearer in 
heaven. Perhaps we are to understand that she was 
taken for the service of the deity at the neighbouring 
shrine of Delphi, where a priestess so long officiated. 

But again, these deities, and these alone, are never 
subjected to disparagement in any other form. Here, 
as we have seen, had once been wounded, and Zeus 
had been, or was about to be, enchained ; but to these 
two no violence is ever offered. Further, Zeus is on 
the very verge of open conflict with Poseidon ; but in the 
Theomachy, the battle between Apollo and his uncle is 
avoided, while Athene inflicts a terrible reverse on her 
huge opponent Ares. Again, Zeus himself is, for the 
time, completely baffled and outwitted by the stratagem 
of Here; and the Hellenising Poseidon is enabled to 
take the field against his orders. But neither Athene 
nor Apollo are ever deceived or visibly put to shame. 

Nor will this appear an easy matter to arrange, when 
it is borne in mind that .these two are the great agents 
of the two great Olympian deities respectively. It is, 
however, carefully contrived that they shall never come 
into actual collision one with the other. Apollo inter- 
feres against Patroclos ; but Athene is absent. Athene 
interferes against Hector ; but Apollo is absent. Again 
he is absent, in the Doloneia, while she conducts to a 
1 II. xx. 234. 



272 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

prosperous issue the night-expedition of Diomed and 
Odysseus 1 . In the Chariot-race of the Twenty-third 
Book, where the contest for the first place is between 
Eumelos and Diomed, Apollo, the partisan of Eumelos, 
throws the whip of Diomed out of his hand 2 . Athene 
restores it, apparently when Apollo has departed, and 
by breaking the chariot-yoke of Eumelos secures the 
victory of her favourite. Apollo here, though saved as 
far as the Poet's art can do it, comes off second best ; 
but only as against Athene. A second instance occurs, 
where he is brought to suggest, at a time when the 
Greeks 3 were losing ground, in lieu of the general con- 
flict, a personal challenge, from Hector which was sure 
to be to their advantage. To appreciate the import- 
ance of this consideration, we must observe how other 
deities are liable to be foiled and worsted : Ares by 
Athene in the Fifth Iliad, and by Hephaistos in the 
Eighth Odyssey ; Here and A'idoneus by Heracles ; 
Artemis by Here in the Theomachy ; Aphrodite by Dio- 
med; Demeter 4 ,.and Here too 5 , by Zeus. Zeus him- 
self was delivered from a conspiracy by extraneous aid. 

There is a manifest difference to be observed as to the 
relations of will and affection with Zeus, between these 
two and the other deities. These alone he calls by the 
epithet c dear 6 . 5 The case of Apollo stands alone as an 
exhibition of entire unbroken harmony with the will 
of Zeus, which in all things he regards. When he 
remonstrates, it is with the body of the gods, not 
with Zeus personally 7 • and Here, rebuking him for his 



1 II. x. 515. 2 II. xxiii. 384. 3 II. vii. 20. * Od. v. 

5 II. xv. 18. 6 II. viii. 39, xxii. 183 ; and xv. 221, xvi. 667. 

7 II. xxiv. 33. 



VIII.], THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2J$ 

interference, is at once checked by Zeus 1 . Though he 
seems to be the habitual organ for accomplishing his 
father's designs, he is never so employed in any purpose 
which is about to fail; such, for instance, as would 
have been the defence of Sarpedon. Zeus himself is by 
no means so carefully shielded, in great providential 
matters, as Apollo. 

The necessities of the Poem place Athene in an- 
tagonism to Zeus, and she goes all lengths in the prose- 
cution of her purposes. But, if in opposition to the 
chief deity, she is on the side not only of justice, but of 
the Olympian decree, to which Zeus himself, his per- 
sonal partialities leaning one way, and his governing 
responsibility another, has felt it right to yield. She 
exposes herself, together with Here, to his threats ; but 
his anger, in her case, is on account of her threatening 
him on a special and rare occasion 2 , while Here ever 
leads him an uneasy life 3 ; and he seems anxious to 
take the first opportunity of reassuring her 4 as his be- 
loved daughter. 

We have, then, in the case of Apollo, an uniform 
identity of will with the chief god, and in the case of 
Athene only an exceptional departure from it. This is 
a very remarkable feature. In Here and Poseidon, it is 
wholly wanting. In Hermes and Iris we find the obedi- 
ence of messengers, but not the unity of counsel and of 
mind. In general, such harmony can no more broadly 
be asserted of Olympos, than of a kingdom or court on 
earth. No traditions known to me appear in any way 
to account for it, except those of the Hebrew race. It 

1 II. xxiv. 69. 2 II. viii. 406-408. 3 II. i. 561-563. 

4 II. viii. 39. 
T 



374 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

is evidently the very picture for which they are calcu- 
lated to furnish the materials. 

The Hellenic religion represents Apollo as the de- 
fender of Heaven, and the Deliverer of the Immortals, 
in some great peril or struggle of contending spirits. 
He destroyed Otos and Ephialtes, the hugest, and after 
Orion the most beautiful, of all beings reared on earth, 
at the critical time when they are about to scale heaven 
by piling the mountains. 

This function has no natural connection with the 
mythological offices of Apollo, great and varied as they 
are. Neither as physician, harper, poet, prophet, archer, 
nor angel of death, can he appear entitled to claim the 
honour thus awarded to him. There is also in Homer 
a glance at a general rebellion of the Giants and at 
their fall in consequence of their impiety 1 . The later 
tradition retains, down to the Augustan age, this ac- 
count of Apollo with a diversity of accompaniments. 
In Homer, as the account is by no means to be ex- 
plained through his Olympian offices, it appears to re- 
present some older tradition, according to which this 
bright and lofty person, intimately associated with, and 
specially executing on earth, the divine will, had like- 
wise put down in actual battle a rising of rebellious 
spirits in the Upper world. 

To Athene there is assigned by Homer no function 
resembling this. But the specialties of a certain divine 
supremacy are in a manner divided between them. 
Athene takes a peculiar jurisdiction in the Underworld- 
and it is the more remarkable because, while she uses 
it in aid of Zeus, it does not come by derivation from 
him. She declares 2 that but for her, Heracles, when 
1 Od. vii. 56, 60. 2 II. viii. 362-369; cf. Od. ii. 623-626, 



VIII.] ; THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 275 

he went to fetch Cerberus, never would have escaped 
the dire streams of Styx. This seems to mean that 
Zeus could not have delivered him. 

Lastly, we cannot fail to observe how the powers 
and offices of these two deities encroach upon and 
cut across the provinces of other recognised divinities, 
with a total absence of any reciprocity in regard to 
what may be called their special function. Athene, 
as the goddess of war, not only rivals Ares, but excels 
him. She is the goddess of art, like Hephaistos, with 
some distinction, indeed, as he operates upon metals 
with the aid of fire, and she ordinarily on tissues. Yet 
not so as to limit her power; for she, together with 
Hephaistos, instructs the silversmith in all the depart- 
ments of his art ] ; and moreover teaches mensuration 
to the carpenter 2 . She presides over industry and over 
cunning, like Hermes ; and she shares with this deity 
his special function as conductor of the dead 3 . Again, 
in parts of her relation to Polity, as 'AyeAeiV, kaov- 
<r6os b , Zpvo-LiTToXis 6 , she approaches to the office of The- 
mis 7 : who summons and dissolves assemblies, thus 
discharging subordinate functions apparently on behalf 
of the primary political deity. 

Apollo, as the healer, discharges the office of Paieon. 
But while Paieon 8 , who is somewhat strongly marked 
as a deity of the Egyptian system, heals with the 
hand9, Apollo has too high a dignity to be thus re- 
presented. He simply deposits the stunned iEneas 
in his temple, where Leto and Artemis proceed to treat 

1 Od. vi. 2 33,xxiii. 154. 2 II. xv. 412. 3 Od. ii. 626 ; cf. xxiv.i. 
* 'Aye\elr) = Spoil-driver, or Folk-leader. 

6 Xaocnroos=Folk-stirrer. 6 epvainroXts^ City-warder. 

7 Od. ii, 69. II. xx. 4. 8 Od. iv. 231. 9 II. v. 401. 

T 2 



37 6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

him 1 : or, in answer to the prayer of Glaucos, heals 
from afar the wound of that gallant warrior 2 . 

Apollo, as the musician, is supreme in the province 
of the Muses; who are purely poetical and Hellenic 
impersonations, sometimes one in number, sometimes 
nine 3 . His concern is with the instrument, theirs with 
the voice ; but they perform together at the Olympian 
banquet 4 , and have, probably, a community of relation 
to the Bard. 

Apollo, as the agent of Zeus, moves in the same 
province as Hermes and Iris, especially the latter: 
but the highest offices are always reserved to him, in 
which the Divine intention is to take effect. It is 
left to Hermes to conduct Priam to the presence of 
Achilles, when the object is only that of a go-between, 
and the result depends upon the will of the hero. 

In the c Studies on Homer 5 I called by the name of 
Secondaries 5 the deities who are thus placed, even in 
their own departments, below Apollo and Athene. 
Perhaps the name is not appropriate, since these 
personages have in general independent traditions of 
their own. The main point is that we should observe 
the approach to a divine universality of office and 
power in Apollo and Athene, which can in no respect 
be accounted for by the formation of the Olympian 
family or its laws. 

Let us now turn to points connected with the human 
and terrestrial relations of these great deities. 

They are jointly invoked, together with Zeus, in a 
solemn but often-repeated formula expressing keen 
desire ; as when Achilles prays, c Father Zeus ! and 

1 II. v. 445-447. 2 II. xvi. 527-529. 3 Od. xxiv. 60. 

4 II. i. 603, 604. 5 Vol. ii. p. 59. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. kj7 

Athene! and Apollo! would that every Trojan should 
perish, and every Greek 1 .' 

And they are placed at the climax of honour in 
another formula 2 : 

' Were I honoured as are honoured Athene and Apollo.' 

This line suggests the question whether, in the time 
of Homer, some visible form of worship may possibly 
have been paid to these two deities, as the agents of a 
Supreme God, presumed to be less accessible than they, 
and was at the same time not accorded to others. Be 
this as it may, they are the only deities whose temples 
are unequivocally named to us in Homer : the temple 
of Apollo 3 at Chruse, on Pergamos, and at Putho : the 
temple of Athene 4 at Athens, on Pergamos, and in 
Scherie. 

Again, we do not find any local limit to the worship 
of these deities within the sphere of Greek knowledge 
and experience. Athene, the most Hellenic deity, is 
the patroness of Pelasgian Attica, and is also the object 
of the supplicatory procession of Trojan women in the 
Sixth Iliad. She is worshipped at Pulos, in Ithaca, 
in the Greek camp. Apollo, the great Trojan deity, 
has his priest among the Kicones, his temple at Pytho, 
his altar in Delos, his grove and festival in Ithaca; 
and he is the fountain-head of the prophetic gift, which 
pervades all parts of Greece. He is connected with 
Kille, with Lycia in the south, and with the Lycian 
Trojans in the north of Asia Minor. Seers, whom he 
always endows with vision, are found 5 even among the 
Cyclops. He feeds the horses of Admetos in Picric, 

1 II. xvi. 97. 2 II. viii. 540; xiii. 827. 

3 II. i. 39 ; v. 445 ; ix. 404. 

* II. ii. 549 ; vi. 88, 297. Od. vi. 320-322. 5 Od. ix. 508-. 



278 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

claims the daughter of Marpessa in yEtolia, and slays 
the children of Niobe near Mount Sipulos. In truth, 
he seems scarcely less universal than that scourge of 
Death, to which he stands in so near and solemn a 
relation. 

No deity of the Poems, except Zeus, can at all 
compete with Apollo and Athene in this respect. 

Next, Apollo and Athene are independent of all the 
limitations of place : another point in which no other 
deity, but Zeus, appears to resemble them. 

Athens, indeed, appears to be indicated in the 
Odyssey as the abode of Athene 1 . Apollo has no 
abode directly assigned to him. But the sign of 
omnipresence in both is, that prayer is addressed to 
them from all places indifferently. Only four times 2 
do we find actual petitions to Apollo, and all these 
in Troas. But we may observe this essential point; 
that, as in the two last of these for example, he is 
presumed to be present, and to hear it as a matter of 
course, without reference to any special residence or 
function. To Athene we have no less than twelve 
prayers given in the Poems, in Ithaca, Scherie, Pulos, 
Troy, and the Greek camp; and always to her as an 
universal not a local power. But even Poseidon, great 
as he is, never has prayer offered to him, except near 
the sea, or by his own descendants. 

In truth, but a small number of deities in Homer are 
made the subjects of actual invocation. For example, 
there is no invocation anywhere to Aphrodite, Ares, 

1 Od. vii. 80, 81. 

2 II. i. 35-43; 450-457; iii. 100-103, 116-131 ; xvi. 513-529. 
Add, however, the references in II. xi. 363, 364, and i. 65, 
473- 



VIII.] I THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2jg 

Hermes, Hephaistos, Demeter, or even Here. Ar- 
temis 1 and Poseidon are invoked: the first in con- 
nection with function, the latter with place. We 
have also addresses from mortals to the deities pre- 
siding over the Oath, or ruling in the Underworld. 
But general prayer is addressed only to Zeus, Pallas, 
and Apollo. 

Again, these favoured deities are exempt from 
physical or other infirmity or need in general. They 
are never excited by mere personal passion. Neither 
of them individually eats or drinks; as Hermes, for 
example, does, at the dwelling of Calypso 2 , or as Iris 
fears lest she should lose her share of the Ethiopian 
hecatomb 3 . Neither of them sleeps, or is weary, or 
is wounded, or suffers pain. They are never intro- 
duced as delighting in sacrifice apart from obedience. 
Artemis sends the boar to Caludon because she had 
been forgotten in the offerings 4 : but Apollo's wrath, 
in the First Iliad, is not for the want of prayer or 
hecatomb, it is on account of the shame and wrong 
done by Agamemnon to Chruses his priest 5 . Diomed 
and Odysseus are dear to Pallas : but she never asks or 
commends their bounty at the altar, as Zeus commends 
that of Hector, and of Odysseus himself 6 . When 
sacrifice is offered to Apollo, in the First Iliad 7 5 after 
the restitution, his pleasure is not stated to have been 
in the savour of it, but in the hymn of praise which 
was addressed to him. Zeus can accept the victims 
even while he frustrates the petition 8 : but when 
Athene in like manner declines a prayer of the 

1 Od. xx. 61. 2 Od. v. 94. 3 II. xxiii. 207. 

* II. ix. 536. 5 II. i. 65, 93. 6 II. xxiv. 68. Od. i. 66. 

7 II. i. 473- 8 II. ii- 420. 



28o JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Trojans, she is not stated to accept the offering 1 ; 
and the idea that when offended she can be appeased 
by mere offerings is thus practically repudiated 2 . 

Again, attributes of bulk stand at the bottom of the 
scale of excellence. They are indirectly assigned to 
Pallas by the weight of the Aigis which she carries- 3 . 
This is possibly on account of the direct competition 
which subsists between the huge Ares, as a god of war, 
and herself, presiding over the same province 4 . Bulk 
is never ascribed to Apollo. 

Again, as to locomotion. Apollo and Athene move 
without the use of any instruments, such as wings, 
chariots, or otherwise. Their journeys are usually 
undistributed and instantaneous. They set out, and 
they arrive 5 . On one occasion only, Athene employs 
the foot-wings 6 which were used by Hermes. But there 
are details and steps in the movements of Hermes, 
Poseidon, and Here 7 . 

The ordinary Olympian deity, when offended by 
mortals, most commonly makes his appeal to Zeus 
for redress. Thus Poseidon acts with respect to the 
Greek rampart; Aphrodite, tacitly, after her wound 
by Diomed ; Ares, in the same condition ; and Helios, 
after his oxen have been devoured by the crew of 
Odysseus 8 . 

But the retributive action of Apollo, in the Plague of 
the First Iliad, is wholly independent, and is the more 
remarkable since he wastes the army of the Greeks to 
the great peril of an enterprise promoted by such 

1 II. vii. 311. 2 Od. iii. 143-147. 3 II. ii. 443. 

4 See II. xviii. 519. 5 Od. i. 102-103. II. xv. 150. 

6 Od. i. 96. 7 Od. v. 50-58. II. xiii. 17-31; xiv. .225-230. 

8 II. v. 869, 426; vii. 445. Od. xii. 377, 387. 



Till.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2$ I 

powerful divinities. In the Third Odyssey 1 , on the 
return of the Greeks, we are told that Zeus designed 
evil for them by reason of their crimes, wherefore 
many perished by the wrath of Pallas ; that she could 
not be appeased, and that Zeus suspended calamity over 
them. There is no sign here of an appeal to Zeus, 
but rather of an identification of the two agencies in 
the providential government of the world. 

Again, Apollo and Athene administer powers which 
are otherwise the special or exclusive property of Zeus. 

The air-functions of that deity are sometimes, 
indeed, exercised by Here. This may reasonably be 
accounted for by her relation to him as wife. No 
kindred reason is available for the selection of these 
two among his children for an office so elevated. 
Athene, with Here, thunders in honour of Agamem- 
non 2 : and she can cause the winds to cease, or to 
blow 3 . So he too sends for the Greek ship a toward 
breeze 4 . But the most significant of all the partici- 
pations of the supreme power is confined to Athene 
with Apollo. Both of them in turn carry the Aigis 
in the Fifth and Fifteenth Iliads respectively 5 . And, 
in truth,. these two deities seem throughout the Iliad 
to share with Zeus the function of Providence - y the one 
as towards the Trojans, the other as towards the 
Greeks 6 . Indeed, in the Odyssey more especially, 
they fill the very highest offices of divine government 
over the minds of men ; which appear to be conducted 
by Pallas, much more than by Zeus himself. 

1 Od. iii. 132 seqq. 2 II. xi. 45. 

3 Od. v. 109, 382-385, et alibi. * II. i. 479 

5 II. v. 735-742 ; xv. 229. 

6 See Studies on Homer, Olympos, pp. 1 15-122. 



282 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. 

There is a very peculiar function attaching to the 
divine supremacy, in the signification of coming 
events to men by the flight of birds, and by atmo- 
spheric signs. This power, being connected with the 
future, is distinguished from the general power over 
external nature. It is shared with Zeus principally 
by Apollo, but also by Athene. He sends the Kirkos, 
or wheeling falcon, to Thrace, as an omen of success 
to Telemachos l : she, a heron to cheer Odysseus and 
Diomed in the Night-excursion of the Tenth Iliad 2 . 
She stupefies and bewilders the Suitors as their ruin 
approaches: but his agent, Theoclumenos 3 , announces, 
and he therefore may be considered as supplying, the 
portents which beset the Hall of the Palace before the 
final catastrophe. 

Nagelsbach observes, that the power of signs is 
confined to Zeus, Here, Apollo, and Pallas 4 . But 
the signs exhibited by Here, the thunder of the 
Eleventh Iliad, and the gift of speech to the horses of 
Achilles, involve no knowledge or signification of the 
future. The prediction delivered by the horse Xanthos 
appears to be his own, and not the gift of the goddess. 

It may be affirmed generally, that both these deities, 
but especially Athene, exercise a power over external 
nature almost without limit. Assuming the human 
form, they can make themselves visible to one person 
only among many 5 . They, and none but they, frame 
images of human beings which can speak or fight 6 : 
Pallas alters at will the figures and features of 

1 Od. xv. 526. 2 11. x. 274. 

3 Od. xx. 345-371- * Horn. Theol. iv. 16; p. 147. 

5 II. i. 198, and (apparently) xvii. 321-324. 

6 II. v. 449. Od. iv. 796, 826. 



VIII.]; THE DIVINITIES OF OLTMPOS. 283 

Odysseus, Penelope, and Laertes; having command, 
apparently, of some organic power over matter and 
vital force. While Athene's jurisdiction as to storms 
is unlimited, Apollo diverts rivers from their beds, and 
makes them converge upon a point > . 

In like manner they act upon the mind of man 
by infusing fear, courage, counsel, as the case may be. 
These operations are never assigned to any deity 
except those of the first order in Olympos. 

But when Poseidon breathes valour into the two 
Ajaxes, he does it by striking them; just as when he 
has to convert the ship of the Phaiakes into a rock, 
he drives it downward with a blow of his hand 2 . On 
the other hand, Apollo infuses courage into Hector 
and Glaucos, and heals also the wounds of the latter 
chieftain 3 , without any outward act. Most of the 
corporal changes effected by Athene in the Odyssey 
are similarly brought about. Only in the case where 
she effects a total transformation of Odysseus, she 
touches him with her wand 4 . 

This exception, as a rule, from the use of instruments 
in giving effect to their will, is a sign of a high con- 
ception, on the part of the Poet, with respect to their 
divine power. In the Kestos of Aphrodite, in the 
wand of Hermes, an intrinsic virtue resides, apart from 
the will of those personages respectively. These are 
not mere symbols : they are causative seats of power. 
That Apollo and Athene do not use any such vehicle, 
is a sign of force, essential, independent, and su- 
preme, over matter. 

1 II. xii. 24. 2 II. xiii. 58. Od. xiii. 164. 

3 II. xvi. 528. * Odi xiii. 429; xvi. 172, 455. 



384 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Yet once more, as to the common features of these 
extraordinary personages. 

Their moral standard is conspicuously raised above 
that of the Olympian family in general. 

Athene has the purity of Artemis, whom in all other 
points she eclipses. This prerogative is expressly 
acknowledged in the ancient Hymn to Aphrodite 1 . 
No such statement can be made of any other among 
the active goddesses : not of Here, Thetis, or Demeter ; 
much less of Aphrodite herself. 

So we have in the Poems sons of Zeus, of Poseidon, of 
Ares, of Hermes ; all of them the fruit of their intrigues 
with women ; but no son of Apollo. Hephaistos, indeed, 
is exempt from the charge, probably on account of his 
personal deformity. Down to the time of iEschylus 2 , 
Apollo retained the epithet of c the pure.' Later still, 
it had been lost 3 ; and the legend of Marpessa, which 
by no means requires such a construction in Homer, 
had been read in the light of the later tradition, and 
had descended to the common level. His share in the 
scene described by the Lay of Demodocos may perhaps 
be accounted for by the fact that the subject belonged to 
a foreign theology, though it may have been one which 
was already beginning to act upon Greece. 

I do not however attach to the term c purity, 3 in an 
inquiry of this nature, its full Christian sense ; in which 
it appears as one portion of the panoply of a complete 
and almost seraphic virtue, and is elevated as well as 
sustained by the spirit of the marvellous religion to 
which it belongs. The moral characters of Apollo 
and Athene are lofty, if measured by the Olympian 
standard, although they will not bear the tests which 

1 yv. 8, 16. 2 Suppl. 222. 3 S. Clem. Alex. p. 20, B. 



VIH.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 285 

the Christian system would apply. Apollo descends 
from his height, in the scene where he strikes Patroclos 
from behind, and knocks his armour off, so as to bring 
the Greek hero into that unequal position in which 
even the keen national feeling of the Poet would allow 
him to be conquered by a Trojan. And Pallas under- 
takes a mean office when she incites Pandaros to a 
breach of the Pact. Counsel, with her, certainly de- 
generates at times into craft and fraud 1 . But these 
drawbacks are in both cases exceptional. Speaking 
generally, the two are beautiful and majestic delinea- 
tions ; and Athene in particular has many of the 
characteristics of the Eternal Wisdom, which came 
forth from the bosom of God. 

The distinctive functions of Apollo, which sever him 
from Athene, are many. The highest are these four : 
that he is familiarly employed by Zeus, with whom he 
has a perfect conformity of will, as his agent in the 
government of human affairs ; that he is the champion 
of Zeus and of heaven against the rebellious powers; 
that he is the minister of death; and, finally, that to 
him alone there seems to be committed an absolute 
knowledge of the future, and the administration of that 
prophetic gift which Calchas, though acting in and for 
the Greek army, held from him 2 . Athene, on the other 
hand, is occasionally the agent of Zeus, with whose 
will, however, she is less uniformly associated 3 . Apollo 
has also, besides the gifts of the bow, of healing, and 
of song, a special association with the light. 

The ministry of death, exercised by Apollo for men 
as by Artemis for women, is most of all remarkable 

1 II. iv. 86-92. Od. xiii. 299. 2 II. i. 72. 

3 II. iv. 70. Od. xxiv. 539-545. 



^86 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

on account of its twofold aspect. It is sometimes 
penal, as with Ariadne 1 ; or even a terrible vengeance, 
as with the children of Niobe 2 . It is sometimes a 
tranquil and painless deliverance from the burden of 
the flesh, as in the island of Surie 3 . Another peculiarity 
of this prerogative is, that it refers to death produced 
without second causes. All other deaths whatever in 
the Poems, natural or violent, appear to be referred to 
second causes. There is a mythological impersonation 
of Death (Thanatos) provided by the Poet, to which to 
refer them. The death brought about by Apollo and 
Artemis is an exceptional death, in the point of being 
directly due to their supreme will and special ministry. 

And this is at least a wonderful phenomenon in the 
Olympian system, especially when we consider how 
gloomy and repulsive, in the view of Homer and his age, 
was the extinction of our mortal life, and the prospect 
of the region that lay beyond it. Here is, as matter of 
fact, a tradition of a Power that was to take away the 
sting from Death, preserved for the time, but for the 
time only, among a people who surrounded death in 
general with associations of a wholly different character. 
Even if it stood alone, we should be driven surely to 
treat it as derived, through whatever channel, from 
some ancient and signal promise of a Deliverer for the 
human race. It does not however stand alone, but 
forms part of a multitude of varied testimonies, all 
converging upon the same point. 

Athene, besides her great special prerogatives of War, 

Policy, and Industrial Art, is invested generally with 

yet greater power than Apollo, and rises to a still 

higher grade of moral majesty. She seems also, by 

1 Od. xi. 324. 2 II. xxiv. 606; cf. vi, 205. 3 Od. xv. 407. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2,8j 

virtue of a latent partnership in the divine supremacy, 
to partake of or represent something analogous to 
several of his peculiar gifts. She enters into his know- 
ledge of the future ; for in the Ithacan cave she foretells 
to Odysseus all that he has yet to suffer 1 . And if he 
is the champion of the gods in Olympus (an office 
which she shared with him in the later tradition), she, 
as I have above observed, possesses a jurisdiction in the 
Underworld 2 , which appears to cross and over-ride that 
of its appointed rulers. Though she cannot avert death 
from a mortal, she can afterwards extricate him from 
its grasp 3 . 

The limits of this work forbid me to pursue the my- 
thological history of Athene and Apollo through the later 
literature of the Greeks and Romans. They continue, 
it may be said generally, to hold positions of great 
splendour, but the distinctive character of their features 
as a whole is gradually enfeebled and effaced. 

Even the hasty reader of Homer cannot fail to be 
struck with it ; but it is only by a minute and careful 
observation of particulars that the whole case can be 
brought out. It then becomes fully manifest that, by 
not one, but a crowd of attributes and incidents, they 
are severed from the general body of the Olympian 
deities of Homer, and closely associated together, 
though very far from being even substantially identified, 
far less confused. These attributes are partly intellec- 
tual, partly moral. The general result is to render their 
position grossly anomalous and wholly inexplicable, if 
the explanation of it is only to be sought in the laws 
of the Olympian system, or in such traditions as the 

1 Od. xiii. 306. 2 II. viii. 362-369. Od. iv. 790-793. 

3 Od. iv. 752, 753. 






a88 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

older nature-worship, or the Egyptian, or Syrian, or 
Phoenician mythologies could supply. 

But when we turn to the Hebrew annals, we find 
there a group of traditions, belonging to what may be 
termed the Messianic order, which appear to supply us 
with a key to the double enigma. The general cha- 
racteristics of the Messianic anticipations are in marked 
conformity with the common prerogatives of Pallas and 
Apollo. And the distinctions of the two deities fall in, 
not less clearly, with the twofold form in which those 
anticipations are presented to us • the one, which 
pointed to a conception more abstract, and less capable 
of being confounded with mere humanity ; the other, 
to a form strictly personal, and intimately associated 
with our nature. 

In these resemblances, there appears to be found 
a very strong presumption, that the Hellenic portion 
of the Aryan family had for a time preserved to itself, 
in broad outline, no small share of those treasures, of 
which the Semitic family of Abraham were to be the 
appointed guardians, on behalf of all mankind, until 
the fulness of time should come. 

It is obvious that such traditions, when cut off from 
their fountain-head, supplied a material basis for that 
anthropomorphic character which distinguished the 
Greek religion from first to last, and associated it so 
closely with the whole detail of life. For, according to 
their tenor, the conception and representation of deity 
in human form were no idle fancy, but were the great 
design of the Almighty God for the recovery of an 
erring, suffering, and distracted race. 

On the importance of these propositions I need not 
dwell. The more they are important, the more it is to 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 289 

be desired that they should be strictly noted. The 
intention of these pages is both to invite, and some- 
what to assist, all such as shall be disposed to undertake 
the pains of such an investigation. 

Section IX. Hephaistos. 

Hephaistos bears in Homer the double stamp of a 
Nature-Power, representing the element of fire, and 
of an anthropomorphic deity, who is the god of Art, 
at a period when the only fine art known was in 
works of metal produced by the aid of fire. 

As Homer gives us faint traces of the elemental god 
of air in endios, and as his Nereus is still represented 
in the nero of modern Greek for c water,' so he actually 
employs the name Hephaistos in one passage undeni- 
ably for fire 1 , if he does not also mean the flame of fire 
in other passages where he mentions c the flame of 
Hephaistos.' This deity is worshipped in Troas, 
where he has a wealthy priest 2 . 

Hahn finds in the fouki-a of the Albanian tongue, 
signifying force, the root of the word Vulcanus 3 ; and 
quotes Varro, c ab ignis vi et violentia Vulcanus 
est dictus.' Schmidt connects the name with fulgere 
and fulmen 4 . 

Hephaistos is not one of the seven astral deities of 
the East, who stood in relation to seven metals. 

It is doubtless in a double or plural tradition that 
we are to seek the explanation of our finding Hephai- 
stos, on the one hand, bearing the marks of antiquity 
which belong to a Nature-Power, and, on the other 

1 II. ii. 426. 2 II. v. 9. 3 Alban. Studien, p. 252. 

4 Beckmann, Inventions, Art. Metals. 

U 



29O JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

hand, made known to us as an infant, the offspring of 
Zeus and Here, whose mother sought to hide him, that 
is to put him out of the way, on account of his lame- 
ness : a sure sign that, in the view of Homer, he was, so 
far as regards his higher character of Art-master, a deity 
of more recent introduction. This part of the tradi- 
tions can relate to no mere fire-god. He is saved by 
Thetis, the grand mediatress of the Theogonies, and 
Eurunome, the daughter of Okeanos ; and hid by them 
in a submarine cavern, where, with the tidal flood of 
ocean ever gurgling in his ears, he spends his time for 
nine years in working clasps, and necklaces, and other 
trinkets. Such an assemblage of images is highly Phoe- 
nician, that is to say Eastern, in its colour. 

The combination in this place of Thetis, a sea-god- 
dess, and the ocean-deity, is remarkable ; and stands, I 
think, alone in Homer. I understand it to betoken 
the dual course of tradition relating to Hephaistos. The 
Okeanos of Homer is the sire of gods, or their source ?. 
This may indeed relate to the Nature-Powers, rather 
than to the Olympian gods, from whom Okeanos stands 
somewhat widely apart. If so, Eurunome has her 
share in the transaction as a representative of the 
older dynasty of gods, and Thetis as a personage who 
has the entree to the newer circle. But it seems more 
probable that as Okeanos, the father of Perse, and 
father-in-law of Helios, has strong Eastern associa- 
tions, Eurunome represents the newer and higher 
character of Hephaistos imported from the East, and 
that Thetis, according to her own stock, befriends him 
as a Nature-Power. 

Both the water of Ocean, and the connection of fire 
1 II. xiv. 201. 



VIII 



.], THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 29 1 



with fine art in metals, probably attach Hephaistos to 
the channels of Phoenician, in its widest sense of 
Eastern, tradition : while he may have represented the 
simple element of fire in the Peiasgian systems of 
religion. 

The latter relation accounts for his being wor- 
shipped in Troas, even while he is one of the deities 
who, following his chief bent, takes decidedly, though 
not passionately, the Greek part in the quarrel. And, 
accordingly, it is under the rude conception of mere 
fire that he is matched, in the Theomachy, with the 
river Xanthos, whom he exhausts by drying up the 
stream, and thus sorely afflicts, until Here intercedes. 

Through all his other marked operations in the 
Poems, Hephaistos, instead of resolving himself into 
the element, remains entirely anthropomorphic, although 
he is so far from satisfying the Greek ideal of a god in 
respect of form. He is such in the Olympian banquet 
at the close of the first Book, at the smithy or forge in 
his own palace, and again in the lay of Demodocos. 

Married to Aphrodite in the Odyssey, he appears in 
the Iliad as the husband of Charis 1 . Now Aphrodite 
is a real member of the mythological system, whereas 
Charis is loosely and faintly delineated, and seems 
almost to hover between an idea and a person. Some 
have treated these two representations as discrepant, 
and have used them in support of the theory, which 
separates the authorship of the two Poems. Others 
(myself included) may have suggested modes of recon- 
ciliation between them, which are insufficient 2 . Having 
now arrived, I think, at adequate proof of the Eastern 
or Phoenician character of the mythology, as well as 

1 Od. viii. 269 ; II. xviii. 382. 2 Studies, vol. ii. p. 257. 

U 7, 



292 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the scenery, of the whole sphere of the Voyages, I find 
in this fact the simplest explanation of a difference, 
which, instead of any longer impeaching, rather tends 
to sustain the unity of authorship. Hephaistos and 
Aphrodite, as husband and wife, owe that relation prob- 
ably to a Syrian or Syro-Phcenician source. Hephaistos 
and Charis, in the sense of the Hellenic mythology, 
together represent, with a perfect propriety, the strength 
and the grace, the beauty or charm, which require to 
be combined in works of Art. Nagelsbach, accordingly, 
treats this marriage as allegorical 1 . 

The Poems, however, establish a relation, be it alle- 
gorical or not, between the Charites and Aphrodite ; 
for the Charites receive her on her return from the 
scene of the Net to Cyprus, where they bathe, anoint, 
and vest her. One junior of their band, promised by 
Here as a wife to Hupnos, or the god of sleep, in Lem- 
nos, is named Pasithee. Two handmaids of Nausicaa 
in Scherie draw their beauty from the Charites. There 
is therefore some evidence to give them a personality 
beyond that which the single mind of the Poet can 
confer. Their relation to Eastern personages suggests 
that they may have had a place in Eastern tradition ; 
while it seems that they acquired with time a recog- 
nised character and worship in Greece 2 . Professor 
Max Miiller derives their name, as well as that of 
the Harits or horses of the Sun, from the Sanscrit root 
ghar, to glitter, to render brilliant by oil 3 . 

The deity of Hephaistos is matchless within the 
sphere of his own art. It is in concert with Athene, that 

1 Horn. Theol. p. 114. 

2 Welcker, vol. i. p. 696. Dr. Schmidt in Smith's Diet, sub <voc. 

3 Lectures on Language, ii. 373, 375. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 293 

he grants to mortals the gift of manual skill 1 ; but his own 
works are the most wonderful recorded of any god. In 
addition to every charm of grace and splendour, they 
have the actual gift of life. In Olympos, the metal 
handmaids of the limping god both think and speak 2 ; 
and in Scherie, the porter-dogs of Alkinoos 3 have per- 
petual existence, and perpetual youth. Even in the 
inanimate Shield there are varied signs of life 4 . A cer- 
tain kindliness of nature marks the intervention of 
Hephaistos, in the first Book, to stop a quarrel 5 be- 
tween his parents; and that he was endowed with 
warm affections is evident from the recital he there 
gives of a former effort made by him to save Here 
from the wrath of Zeus, which entailed on him a fall 
from heaven to earth 6 , as well as from the warm grati- 
tude 7 he displays towards Thetis for the benefit she 
had conferred on him. His conduct respecting Here 
is the more praiseworthy, in proportion as her attempt 
upon his deformed infancy had been unnatural 8 . In 
the lay of the Net, under the heaviest provocation, 
his conduct is not vindictive. 

Hephaistos is the architect of the palaces of the gods 9, 
as well as the artificer of the most conspicuous works of 
Art mentioned in the Poems 10 . He made a lock for 
Here which not only no man, but no god could open 11 . 
Lemnos appears to be his chosen abode, as a volcanic 
isle: of other similar islands or spots, in the later 
' mythology, we find the like recorded. 

1 Od. vi. 233 ; xxiii. 160. 2 II. xviii. 417. 

3 Od. vii. 91-94. 4 Infra,]). 488. 5 II. i. 571-589. 

6 II. i. 590-594. 7 II. xviii. 395. 8 II. xviii. 395-397* 

9 II. i. 607 ; xiv. 167, 338. 10 II. viii. 195 ; Od. iv. 617. 

11 II. xiv. 167, 8. 



!' 



294 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. 

Out of his own art, he carries no signs of divinity in 
Homer; he does not act on general nature, or on the 
human mind, unless in a case where the sons of his 
own Priest are concerned ; and these he merely conceals 
in a cloud of vapour, a power which even Aphrodite 
seems to exercise on behalf of the body of Hector. 
His powers of perception are so limited, that, in the 
lay of Demodocos, he is ignorant of what takes place, 
during his absence, in his own house, until the Sun 
informs him, whom he again employs as a spy; nor, 
in the Twenty-first Book of the Iliad, is he aware of 
the danger in which Achilles stands from the united 
Rivers, until Here informs him, and bids him act 1 . 



Section X. Ares. 

The Ares of Homer, like his Poseidon, exhibits that 
idea of deity which both rises above man, and sinks 
much below him : in point of strength divine, in point 
of mind and heart simply animal. He is a compound 
of deity and brute. 

But Ares is greatly inferior to Poseidon in that class 
of conceptions, to which both, in a marked manner, 
belong. Glory and awe surround the one, from his 
unfailing might, and his high origin. Ares represents 
a huge mass of animal force ; but he is so exhibited in 
the action of the Iliad, as to fall into much of the con- 
tempt (in a certain sense) which is evidently meant to 
attach to Aphrodite. 

It seems safe to assume that a god, and more espe- 
cially a god of war, whom Homer represents as wounded 

1 II. xxi. 328-333. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 295 

and disabled by a Greek warrior, could not, in the time 
of Homer, have been a deity of acknowledged worship 
and renown in Greece. Nor is there found in the Poems 
any trace of such worship. No prayer or sacrifice is 
offered to him : he has no general command over the 
mind of man, or over external nature. It is said, in- 
deed, that he entered into Hector while that chieftain 
was engaged in putting on the armour of Achilles 1 ; but 
this appears to treat him simply as a passion, just as in 
other places his name becomes a synonym for war, or for 
a spear. None of the five great gods of the Poems are 
ever said thus to enter into (as if it were to be con- 
tained in and circumscribed by) the spirit of a man ; 
the highest divine agents effuse, so to speak, and in- 
spire a temper, but do not impart themselves. He has, 
however, a special relation to the martial spirit, which 
he stirs in Menelaos 2 , and which he confers as a gift 
in the Odyssey upon the Pseudodysseus ; but only in 
conjunction with Athene 3 . This may be taken, how- 
ever, as a sign that he was known to some extent within 
Greece ; in Crete, for example. In Greece, too, he is 
the father of Ascalaphos and Ialmenos 4 ; and the wall 
of Thebes is the teichos Areion 5 . Lunemann 6 ob- 
serves, that Ares represents the idea of raw courage. 
He does not represent courage as Homer conceived it. 
He has no skill, resource, or even perseverance in war, 
whether against Athene or against Diomed ; but rather 
a stupid insensibility, which rushes on the spear's point". 
And, when he has felt it, he flies off, and howls under 
the pain : two operations never (I think) permitted by 

1 II. xvii. 210. 2 II. v. 563. 3 Od. xiv. 199, 216. 

4 II. ii. in voc. 5 II. iv. 407. 6 Worterbuch in voc. 

7 II. v. 859-863. 



2g6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Homer to a wounded Greek ; perhaps not even to a 
wounded Trojan. He groans again after his discom- 
fiture by Athene in the Theomachy 1 . 

In battle with the Solumoi, Ares is said to slay Isan- 
dros, the son of Bellerophon. This may mean no more 
than that Isandros fell in the war 2 . 

Represented as dwelling in Olympos, he is unaware 
of what has taken place on the battle-fields of Troas ; 
he learns by accident the death of his son Ascalaphos ; 
and when rushing forth to avenge it, he is arrested by 
Pallas, who strips off his armour, scolds him sharply, 
and replaces 2 him in his seat 3 . She habitually, indeed, 
to use our homely phrase, bullies him 4 . 

Thus inferior in action to Athene, he only divides 
with her the prerogative of presiding over war. On 
the Shield of Achilles, the two are represented 5 as the 
patrons respectively of the two opposing hosts ; and in 
a variety of passages 6 besides that already referred to, 
their common, or rather rival, possession of this field of 
action is exhibited. For example, in the Twentieth 
Iliad 7, while Athene shouts to urge on the Greeks, Ares 
does the like for the Trojans. 

In the Fifth Iliad 8 , he envelopes the fight in darkness : 
but, as if to account for so powerful an operation by 
a deity of his secondary rank, the Poet goes on to say 
that he was fulfilling the orders of Apollo, who had bid 
him incite the Trojans. 

He was overcome and bound by the youths Otos and 
Ephialtes (whom Apollo conquered) ; and he would have 

1 II. xxi. 417. 2 II. vi. 203. 3 II. xv. 110-142. 

4 II. v. 766. 5 II. xviii. 516. 

6 II. v. 430, xvii. 398, xx. 350. 7 48-53. 
8 505-511- 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 2gJ 

perished in his bonds, had not Hermes released him, 
after an imprisonment of thirteen months \ Immortal 
he is 2 j but, it appears, only just immortal. 

He is thirsty, not of sacrifices in the ordinary way, 
but of human blood 3 . According to Ammianus 4 , the 
Thracians of history propitiated him by sacrificing the 
lives of prisoners. 

So limited are his perceptions, that Pallas, by putting 
on a particular helmet, can prevent his recognising 
her 5 . 

His flesh is tender, like that of all the gods : but he 
is described principally by bulk and mass 6 . When 
Athene smites him to the ground, he extends over 
nine pelethra, or about seven hundred feet 7 , in 
length. 

On escaping from the net, in the Eighth Odyssey, 
he repairs to Thrace. From thence, with his ideal son 
Terror, he comes forth to make war upon the Ephuroi 
(a race whom their name appears to associate with the 
Greeks), or with the Phleguai. In Thrace clearly was 
his home. Thrace appears to have been known by the 
name of Aria 8 . Berkel connects the two names to- 
gether. 

If, on the one hand, Ares was not fully established 
as an Hellenic deity, still he is a son of Here, in the 
Olympian family, and there is a lack of special links 
between him and the Trojans. It appears that he 
wavered between the two parties : nay, even that he 
had promised to take part with the Greeks, and had 
then changed his mind. He is accordingly called turn- 

1 II. v. 385-391. 2 lb. 901. 3 lb. 289. 

4 xxvii. 4. 5 II. v. 845. 6 II. ii. 478 ; vii. 208 ; viii. 349. 

7 II. xxi. 407. 8 Steph. Byzant. in voc. Thrake. 



298 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [cfiAP. 

coat (alio pro sail os), and is a special object of the 
wrath of Here, who makes known in Olympos the 
death of his son Ascalaphos, with the hope that he may 
avenge it on the Trojans, and so change sides again. 
This he is evidently about to do, in despite of the pro- 
hibition of Zeus, when Pallas stops him, lest more 
trouble should arise from the wrath of the Sire. When 
he suffers defeat in the Theomachy, Pallas tells him 
it is because the Erinues of his mother Here pursue 
him ] . The whole nation of the Thrakes, however 
(as we now understand Thrace), with whom he is 
specially associated, are among the allies of Troy in 
the War 2 . 

It is difficult, from the materials afforded by Homer, 
to trace the god Ares up to his origin. But his promi- 
nent place in the Italian mythology renders it probable, 
that his worship may have prevailed among the Pelas- 
gian forerunners of the Hellenic race. Welcker thinks 
that he had had a divine cultus at an early date among 
some race alien to the Greek, from which the Hellenic 
gods proper displaced him, and that there are traces 
Of him as a Nature-Power 3 . Both ideas would be veri- 
fied if he could be tracked to a Pelasgian or quasi-Pe- 
lasgian source ; and this too would give a propriety to 
his siding with Troy ; which, however, poetical neces- 
sity went far towards exacting, in order to give even 
the faintest show of equality to the Trojan party in 
Olympos. 

1 II. xxi. 412. 2 II. ii. 844-846. 3 Gr. Gbtterlehre, i. 414. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 299 



Section XL Hermes. 

The part played by Hermes in the Iliad is secondary. 
His only important manifestation is when, in the 
Twenty-fourth Book, he appears by order of Zeus to 
Priam, under the semblance of a young prince ; and 
attends him, with amiable care, on his way to and from 
the scene of his arduous errand. But this mission is 
neither political nor military. It is only social and 
domestic. It is eminently illustrative of the peculiar 
function of Hermes, which is, to be the god of expe- 
dients, resource, and help; the accommodating and 
genial god 1 . This character is expressed alike in his 
epithets, such as eriounios 2 and akaketa 3 , and in his 
conduct. His agency is, as a rule, beneficial to those 
with whom he deals : hence he is chosen to be the 
guide of Priam : hence he assures Calypso that he has 
come to her unwillingly at the command of Zeus, 
cautiously alleging, however, the length of way and 
want of provision on the journey, as his reasons 4 . He 
is the person employed to admonish Aigisthos 5 not to 
commit the meditated crimes : a warning, which aimed 
at saving him from vengeance. 

Hermes is the son of Zeus and Maias 6 . He is the 
giver of increase, dotor eaon?: and it is perhaps in 
this capacity that Eumaios^ the swineherd, consecrates 
to him a seventh portion, at the meal-sacrifice in his 
hut, on the arrival of Odysseus 8 . Like the majority of 
the other gods, he has one or more human children 

1 II. xxiv. 334. 2 Rare helper. 3 Never harmful. 

* Od. v. 99-102. 5 Od. i. 38. 6 Od. viii. 335 ; xiv. 435. 

7 Od. viii. 335. . 8 Od. xiv. 435. 



gOO JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

born clandestinely 1 : but, whenever we hear of him, 
it is as the giver of some gift, or renderer of some 
service. Yet the idea of concealment inheres in his 
functions. When the question is raised in Olympos 
as to delivering the body of Hector, the first expedient 
is, that Hermes should steal it 2 . Again he steals Ares 
out of his confinement 3 . His prerogatives however 
embrace not only thievery, but also perjury, as it was 
he who conferred both these gifts on Autolucos 4 . Yet 
perhaps, considering his general character of usefulness 
without hurt, we may possibly presume that these ob- 
jectionable faculties were only given for some defensive 
or beneficial end. In Homer, he has no relation to 
industry, or skill in manufacture : these belong to 
Athene and Hephaistos. But he seems to be the agent 
or envoy of the Olympian assembly : and his office as 
the god of increase, together with his relation to pilfer- 
ing, place him in connection with the business of 
exchange, at a period when commerce, so beneficial in 
itself, is notwithstanding a near neighbour not only to 
fraud on the one hand, but to violence on the other. 

He never hates, or punishes, or quarrels, or is in- 
censed with any one. Nor is he troubled with self- 
love. Though ranged on the Greek side* in the poem, 
and in the Theomachy, he declines the contest with 
Leto, his appointed antagonist, as a wife of Zeus, too 
great for him to cope with : and tells her she may give 
out that she has worsted him 5 . 

In the Fourth Iliad, Zeus chooses Athene for the 
mission to Pandaros, to persuade him to break the 
covenanted truce 6 . This office would have seemed 

1 II. xvi. 181. 2 II. xxiv. 24. 3 II. v. 390. 

4 Od. xix. 369. 5 II. xxi. 497-501. 6 II. iv. 69. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 301 

every way more suitable to Hermes. The reason that 
it is not committed to him may probably be, that he 
was unknown in Troy. In the Twenty-fourth Book, 
he describes himself to Priam as a Myrmidon and an 
esquire of Achilles, nor does he announce himself as 
a god until it becomes necessary that he should depart, 
and leave the old King alone within the cantonment 
of the formidable hero. Priam does not then in any 
manner recognise him personally, or address him in his 
divine capacity. 

The functions discharged by Hermes appear to point 
to a connection with the Phoenicians, as the great mer- 
chants of the time. The name of his mother Maias 
is not connected by Homer with Phoenicia, except by 
the negative evidence that, like Dione the mother of 
Aphrodite, she does not appear in the list of the attach- 
ments of Zeus given in the Fourteenth Iliad, where all the 
intimacies have their scene laid or supposed in Greece, 
Greek traditions alone appearing to be admitted. In 
the Hymn to Hermes the gap is supplied, and Maias 
is declared to be the daughter of Atlas, who is with 
Homer a personage entirely Phoenician. 

Again, Hermes manifestly has a personal relation 
with Calypso 1 , who welcomes him as aibolos re Qikos re 2 ; 
terms, which are much beyond the limit of ordinary 
courtesy ; which are employed in the very special case 
of Zeus and Thetis 3 ; and which Here flatters herself 
she shall deserve at the hands of Okeanos and Tethus, 
provided she shall succeed in bringing them together 
again 3 . Calypso was the daughter of Atlas : and it 
is probable that Maias was her mythological sister, 

1 Od. v. 88. 2 Revered and loved. 

3 II. xxiv. in. Cf. II. xviii. 394. 4 II. xiv. 210. 



30$ yUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

and Hermes her nephew. We have another sign of 
the ties between him and Calypso in this, that Odys- 
seus obtained from her the account of the proceedings 
in Olympos about the oxen of the Sun, and that she 
had had it from Hermes. This could hardly be on 
any other footing than that of a mythological relation- 
ship, really indicating an ethnical affinity. He was 
systematically worshipped by the people of Scherie 
before retiring to rest J . 

We find him yet again employed, within the circle 
of the Phoenician traditions 2 , to instruct Odysseus as 
to the means, by which he may safely encounter Kirke 
and her enchantments. I again use the word Phoenician 
as including, for Homer, what was Egyptian or Eastern. 

Other remarkable incidents are recorded of him. 
It was he who, together with Athene, conducted He- 
racles in safety, with the formidable dog, out of Hades 3 : 
and he likewise escorts the souls of the Suitors from 
Ithaca to the Underworld 4 . He, moreover, carried to 
Pelops, from Zeus, the sceptre which Hephaistos had 
wrought 5 . 

Hermes is an agent rather than a mere messenger : 
and, as a messenger, he is pretty clearly distinguished in 
this vital respect, that he goes not, like Iris, upon the 
personal errand of Zeus or Here, but he carries the 
collective resolution of the Olympian Court 6 . His 
general office is best represented by the word diactoros 
or agent, hers by angel os or messenger. He may be 
called the god of intercourse. 

His very marked name, Argeiphontes, is nowhere 

1 Od. vii. 137. 2 Od. x. 275-307. 3 Od. xi. 623-626. 

4 Od. xxiv. 1-14. 5 II. ii. 104. 

6 Od. i. 38, 84. Cf. II. xxiv. 24. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 303 



explained in Homer ; or in Hesiod ; or in the Homeric 
Hymn. It is discussed fully by Welcker 1 : and the 
constructions put upon it tend to connect him with 
the East, and with the astronomic worship. In the 
system of the Persians, as stated by Origen, the seventh 
or mixed metal is assigned to him 2 . The first verse 
of the Twenty-fourth Odyssey connects him with Ar- 
cadia through Cyllene. Hahn finds in the Albanian 
language words capable (chermes, tourme,) of rela- 
tion to his name. It is quite possible that two or more 
streams of mythological traditions may meet in him ; 
but his dominant relations are evidently Eastern. 

But as this deity, of great importance and highly 
diversified attributes in the later mythology, is of se- 
condary consequence in Homer, I pass on. 

Section XII. Artemis. 

We must not be discouraged if, especially in the 
case of a deity of the second order like Artemis, we 
find much difficulty in discerning the precise channel 
through which she reached her actual place in the 
Hellenic mythology, as daughter of Leto, and sister 
of Apollo, with the other attributes attaching to her. 

On the whole, however, it seems that there is much 
truth in the observation of Muller, who says she was 
worshipped c as it were a part of the same deity z ' with 
Apollo. She is in the main a reflection of her brother, 
much in the same manner as, saving the substitution 

1 Gr. Gotterlehre, vol. i. pp. 336 seqq. 

2 Beckmann, Hist, of Inventions, Art. ' Metals.' 

3 Miiller's Dorians, vol. ii. ch. 9. The chapter contains much 
information on the worship of Artemis. 



304 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

(as it may be called) of the sisterly for the conjugal 
relation, Here is a reflection of Zeus. The relation of 
atmosphere to earth, which had been recognised outside 
of the Olympian scheme, became, under the anthro- 
pomorphic law of that scheme, the relation of King and 
Father Zeus, to Queen and Mother Here. The affinity 
of Sun to Moon, acknowledged already as divinities in 
eastern, and probably also in Pelasgian, systems of reli- 
gion, undergoing a like transmutation, appears in the 
Olympian scheme as the relation of the brother Apollo 
to the sister Artemis. For we have already seen the 
reasons for supposing that in Troy itself the Sun was 
worshipped as the far-darting Apollo. If there was a 
Sun-worship there, so in all likelihood there was a 
worship of the Moon. But Olympian laws seem not to 
allow an acknowledgment in the action of the Iliad of 
the relation between Apollo and the Sun; nor, by 
parity of reasoning, can they recognise any relation 
of Artemis to the Moon. 

That such a relation subsisted out of Greece, we may 
readily suppose. The traditions, on which Homer had 
to employ his plastic power, varied and heterogeneous, 
were on that very ground the more elastic and flexible, 
partly in things, but especially in names. Identity is 
as hard to follow in them, as it is easy in human life. 
They seem to form, disform, and re-form before us, like 
the squares of coloured glass in the kaleidoscope as it 
is turned about by the hand. One group of these tradi- 
tions, which when associated compose a nebula^ appears 
before us in severalty, divided between the three indi- 
vidualities of Artemis, Persephone, and Aphrodite. 
Another form of the severance, wholly Greek in spirit, 
comes before us in the double tradition of the celestial 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 305 

and the earthy or sensual Aphrodite ; and to the celes- 
tial Aphrodite the Artemis of Homer bears no small 
resemblance. Indeed it seems likely that, as Homer 
found or shaped the old Earth-tradition in several 
forms, of which the portion least earthy, and most 
sublimed, became his Here, so probably there may have 
lain before him a variety of forms of the tradition of 
the Moon-goddess, in association with highly varied 
ascriptions, the most ethereal and purest part of which 
took, we may suppose, its place in the Olympian 
system as his Artemis. 

But the relations of wife and sister respectively, in 
which Here and Artemis are placed, are probably due 
to the anthropomorphic principle, and to that method 
of copying for heaven the things seen and known on 
earth, according to which the Theo-mythology of Homer 
is constructed. And the remarkable participation of 
Artemis in the high prerogatives of Apollo is notably 
like the participation of Here in the prerogatives of 
Zeus. In this participation, this greatness by reflection, 
consists principally the dignity of each goddess. The 
rude material, which as Nature-Powers they respec- 
tively offered to the hand, is thus lighted up with an 
extraordinary splendour. 

The Homeric signs of relation between Artemis and 
the Moon are of the same kind with those of Apollo to 
the Sun ; but fainter in proportion to smaller energies, 
and a more confined activity. The terrible clang of 
the arrows of Apollo is reflected in the rattle of those of 
Artemis 1 . His golden sword is represented in her 
golden distaff 2 . She is also golden-throned, and uses 
golden reins 3 . These are epithets suitable to the moon. 
1 II. i. 46 ; xvi. 183. 2 II. xx. 71. s 11. vi. 205 ; ix. 529. 

x 



306 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Hahn finds no root for the name Artemis in the Al- 
banian tongue ; and we cannot in this way trace it to 
the Pelasgian religion. But in c Charnea,' meaning 
the moon, he detects the Anna Perenna of the Latins, 
of whom Ovid 1 says, c Sunt quibus haec Luna est;' 
and likewise the Anath or Tanath of Egypt, who is 
taken by some to be the analogue of Artemis 2 . On the 
v/hole we seem to have a groundwork in the scheme of 
Nature- worship, on which the Homeric tradition of Ar- 
temis is built, and which places her on the Trojan side. 

The great function which in Homer she shares with 
Apollo, is that of being the minister of Death, in the 
double sense of a deliverance or translation, and of 
an infliction penal in its nature. In the first capacity, 
Penelope asks her aid, that she may be set free from 
the persecutions of the Suitors 3 : and in like manner 
she dismisses from life the women, and Apollo the 
men, of the happy island of Surie, where want and 
sickness are unknown 4 . But she likewise slays Ariadne, 
for her lapse from chastity in Die 5 ; and avenges on the 
daughters of Niobe (as does Apollo on the sons) the 
offence of their mother 6 . As the Huntress-queen, she 
is the destroyer of Jife in animals, and perhaps this 
office was committed to her as an inferior portion of 
the ministry of death, more suitably placed in her hands 
than in those of her brother Apollo ; as if she had, so to 
speak, the leavings of his great offices. 

The inferiority, indeed, of Artemis to Apollo is very 
strongly marked in Homer, although the relation of 
Moon to Sun was most suitably represented in an an- 

1 Fast. iii. 657. 2 Hahn. Alban. Stud. pp. 250, 277. 

3 Od. xx. 61. 4 Od. xv. 407. 5 Od. xi. 324. 

6 II. xxiv. 604-609. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 307 

thropomorphic religion by placing them as brother and 
sister. In the Fifth Iliad, when Apollo carries ^Eneas 
to Pergamos, and places the disabled chief in his own 
temple, Leto and Artemis are found there 1 , to nurse 
and restore him ; not in any shrine of their own, nor 
in one common to the family. And again in the Theo- 
machy, Artemis, contending with Here, is subjected to 
sad indignity, and actually whipped with her own bow 
and arrows 2 . She is here treated with none of the 
special respect that is given, not only to Apollo and^ 
Athene, but to Leto. This convinces me on further 
reflection 3 that her Olympian relation to Apollo is 
more probably based upon physical facts, than upon 
participation in the higher traditions. 

Her agency, however, is ubiquitous ; perhaps in 
virtue of facts belonging to the same order ; yet it 
would be singular, if her worship obtained among Hel- 
lenes earlier than that of the Sun. So, however, it 
seems to have been. A generation at least before the 
War, Artemis is worshipped in Caludon, and she sends 
the Boar thither to avenge the lack of sacrifice 4 . We 
are thus enabled to conjecture that in this instance, 
even before the hand of Homer was applied to mytho- 
logic manipulation, the Hellenic mind had done its 
work, and she was fairly impersonated in the capacity 
which we find that she fills in the Poems. We meet 
her in Troas, where she taught Scamandrios 5 to hunt ; 
she is invoked in Ithaca by Penelope 6 • her part in the 
legend of the daughters of Pandareos belongs probably 
to Crete • and we have seen her agency in Surie, and 

1 II. v. 445. * II. xxi. 489-496. 

3 Studies on Homer, vol. ii. pp. no, 144. * IL ix. 533-542. 

5 II. v. 49-52. 6 Od. xx, 6i, 71. 

X 2, 



308 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

in Die 1 . Again, in Ortugie she took the. life of Orion. 
And the Artemis of Homer has no relation to any one 
or more places in particular. 

Apart from the ministry of death, and from this appa- 
rent attribute of omnipresence, her powers, in regard 
both to Nature and to the mind, are those of the lower 
or secondary order of the Olympian Court. But, in the 
matter of personal beauty, she is the rival of Aphrodite ; 
and here she appears to absorb that part of the tradition, 
.which afterwards went by the name of the heavenly 
Aphrodite. One most frequent illustration of great 
beauty is a comparison with Aphrodite the golden ; and 
it is to her that Achilles refers 2 as the model of loveli- 
ness. But the incomparable Nausicaa, who appears to 
be the poet's ideal of youthful beauty combined with 
purity and excellence 3 , is likened by Odysseus to Artemis 
in countenance, bearing, and stature. And again, in 
the case of the daughters of Pandareos, while it is Here 
who confers upon them beauty of feature, and Aphro- 
dite simply purveys food for them, it is Artemis who 
gives them stature, which I suppose to include all 
that relates to beauty of figure. It is noteworthy that 
stature is never mentioned (I think) in connection with 
Aphrodite, and I suppose it therefore to be in the pro- 
vince of Artemis. 

While this attribute marks the point at which the 
traditions appropriated to her touch upon those of 
Aphrodite, on the other hand the epithet ayvrj, the 
severely pure 4 , seems to indicate her point of contact 
with Persephone, the Queen of Hades. The two forms 
were, as we know, afterwards fused into one. 

1 Od. v. 123. 2 II. ix. 389. 3 Od. vi. 150. 

4 Od. v. 123 ; xviii. 201 ; xx. 71. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 309 



Section XIII. Persephone. 

Persephone the Queen of Hades is called by Homer 
the c severely pure' {ayvi}), the c majestic' (ayavr)), and the 
c terrible 3 (e-naivrj). And she represents what we might 
reasonably expect from her position as Queen in the 
Underworld: a mixture of Pelasgic and of Eastern 
traditions. Of the former, because all the Pelasgic 
Nature-Powers had been disposed of by carrying them 
into that nether sphere ; of the latter, because the site 
of the Underworld of Homer was in the East, the 
entrance to it by the point of the rising of the Sun 1 . 

She is represented as ruling together with A'idoneus, 
and by no means as merely his wife. Introduced together 
with him into the Legend of Phoenix by his father, and 
also by Althaia 2 , she seems even to be charged in chief 
with the sovereignty. She gathers the Women-shades 
for Odysseus, and she disperses them. It is she who, 
as he fears, may send forth the head of Gorgo should 
he tarry over long; who may have deluded him with 
an Eidolon or shadow in lieu of a substance; who 
endows Teiresias with the functions of a Seer 3 . On the 
shores of Ocean, just before the point of descent in the 
far East, are the groves of Persephone. A'idoneus does 
no personal act in the Poems, except that with her he 
executes the imprecatory vow of the father of Phoenix 4 ; 
and that he trembles lest the crust of earth should be 
riven by earthquake, during the battle of the gods 5 . 

1 Od. xii. 1-4. 2 II. ix. 457-569. 

3 Od. xi. 226, 385, 634, 213 ; and x. 494. 

4 II. ix. 456, 457. 5 II. xx. 61-65. 



310 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Notwithstanding his high rank as the brother of Zeus, 
she is the principal, and he is the secondary figure in 
the weird scenery of the Eleventh Odyssey. 

It seems very probable that she represents that old 
Pelasgian tradition of the awful Damsel, which had, as 
we know especially from the mythological itinerary of 
Pausanias, such extraordinary longevity and power in 
the Greek religion. Together with this, we have to 
consider i. her Eastern site, 2. her gift to Teiresias, 
alone among the dead; connecting her on the one 
hand with Apollo, the god of foreknowledge, but on 
the other with the Phoenicians, and with the Eastern 
associations of which they were the channels. 

The name Persephone appears to attach itself by 
etymology to other names in the Homeric Poems j all 
of which are Eastern in their associations. Perse, the 
daughter of Okeanos, is also the wife of Helios, and the 
mother of Kirke, who dwells in Aiaie. Each of the 
three points of contact thus established is a link to the 
East. Perseus, the founder of the dynasty which pre- 
cedes the Pelopids, is the son of Zeus and Danae, a 
parentage which, as we have already found, we may 
properly consider as implying a foreign, and an Eastern, 
origin. In the person of Perseus, the son of Nestor 1 , 
the name is continued in the Neleid House, which 
appears to have been of Phoenician extraction. The 
national designation of Achaians appears also not im- 
probably to connect itself with the Persian race through 
the name Archaimenidai and otherwise 2 , which may 
not improbably have contributed an element to the 
formation of the Greek nation. 

Our first historical notice of that race is about the 
1 Od. iii. 414. 2 See Studies on Homer, vol. i. p. 557. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 311 

middle of the ninth century before Christ 1 , when Shal- 
maneser II found them in south-western Armenia. 
This point approximates to the region, in which the 
imagination of Homer placed the shadowy dwelling of 
Persephone. 

In the later tradition, she becomes united with Arte- 
mis, and so related to Apollo ; a relationship of which 
perhaps we have a single Homeric trace in her com- 
mand over the knowledge of the future. 



Section XIV. Aphrodite. 

The Aphrodite of Homer was a goddess, for she 
is the daughter of Zeus, and of Dione, whose residence 
is in Olympos, and who belongs to the divine order 2 . 
She is also herself expressly stated to belong to it 3 . 
But it does not appear that she had as yet come to be 
a goddess of the Hellenic religion properly so called. 

In order to estimate her position in the scheme of 
Homer, the following circumstances should be con- 
sidered : — 

1. There is no trace of her worship, or of any in- 
fluence exercised by her over mortals, either in Greece, 
or among the Greeks. 

2. She is never once exhibited by Homer in a favour- 
able light , sometimes in a neutral one ; more com- 
monly in an odious or contemptible point of view. 

3. Though herself a model of personal beauty 4 , she 
was not the goddess of beauty, inasmuch as she had 






1 Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, ii. 374 ; iii. 349. 

2 II. iv. 370, 381, 383. 3 II. iv. 337-342 ; xx. 106. 
* II. ix. 389. 



312 JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



CHAP. 



not the power to confer the gift. Beauty is not in- 
cluded in the properties 1 conveyed by the Kestos • and 
it is Here who endows the orphan daughters of Pan- 
dareos with beauty, while Aphrodite has no other office 
assigned to her in their rearing, than supplying them 
with food, and preferring to Zeus, when they are 
grown up, the prayer that they may marry 2 . 

4. She is wounded by Diomed, and is apparently 
destitute alike of the powers of resistance, of vengeance, 
and of endurance. We can hardly suppose that a 
deity exhibited in a light so contemptible, as is Aphro- 
dite in the Battle of the Fifth Iliad, was as yet an 
object of Hellenic worship 3 . 

5. Her helplessness after receiving her wound from 
Diomed is remarkable. While Ares rides spontaneously 
to heaven 4 , Aphrodite is led out of the battle by Iris 5 , 
and makes a petition to her brother Ares for the loan 
of his chariot and horses, that she may by their means 
be carried to Olympos. 

In the Lay of the Net, . she is reported as going from 
Olympos to Paphqs without aid 6 : possibly because this 
is a descent, not an ascent ; or more probably because 
in a Syrian episode her rank would be more fully 
recognised than in an Hellenic poem. 

6. No place is assigned to her, even on the losing 
side, in the Theomachy, which determines or ushers 
in the issue of the Iliad. And this is the more remark- 
able, because a fifth deity is wanting to make up a 
number equal to the five deities of the Greeks ; and 



1 II. xiv. 198, 215. 2 Od. xx. 66-75. Cf. It v. 429. 

3 II. v. 311-380. 4 II. v. 864-870. 5 II. v. 353. 



6 Od. viii. 362. 



VIII.] ' THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 313 

Leto, who is elsewhere in the Poems a perfectly mute 
personage, is introduced in order to fill it. 

7. The only place where she is named among the 
Olympian family, is in the Lay of the Net, a tale 
apparently of Phoenician importation, and of Syrian 
origin. She bears the name of Cypris ; and her place 
of abode is Cyprus, where were her altars, and her glebe 
or domain 1 . She was therefore worshipped in that 
island ; and we may trace her worship as far westward 
as Cythera, from the following circumstances : first, she 
is twice called KvOipeta 2 ; and secondly, KvOrjpaL are 
called (aQtoi, an epithet which always indicates the 
special relation of the place to some deity. Her relation 
to Paris 3 proves that she was in some manner acknow- 
ledged in Troas; and the taunt of Helen respecting 
her supposed favourites in Meonia and Phrygia is to 
be taken as showing that she was also recognised as 
a deity in those regions. In effect she was an Asiatic 
deity ; and her name and worship were crossing the sea 
by steps towards the Greek Peninsula. But she must have 
been of small account in Asia Minor, or she could 
hardly have failed to find a place in the Theomachy. 

8. The power of this goddess over external nature 
is extremely limited. The greatest manifestation of 
it is where she c with ease 3 draws Paris out of the fight, 
wrapping him in vapour 4 . In the Fifth Book, it is 
when she is slily dragging off iEneas, covered with her 
robe, that Diomed pursues and wounds her, c knowing 
that she was an effeminate or strengthless deity 5 .' 

She is however invested with a certain superintend- 
ence of marriage in its physical aspect; and in this 

1 Od. viii. 362. 2 Od. viii. 288; xviii. 192. 

3 II. iii. 400-402. 4 II. iii. 380. 5 II. v. 331. 



314 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

capacity she sends to Andromache the nuptial gift of 
her hood or head-band 1 . 

Athene, taunting her upon her wound, makes the 
supposition 2 that she got it in undressing some Greek 
woman that she had persuaded to elope with one of 
her beloved Trojans. Nay, Helen also bitterly re- 
proaches her, advising her to cease altogether from 
pretending to divinity- and Aphrodite, in the Third 
Iliad, only overcomes her by the violence of her threats 3 . 
From these it appears, if indeed proof were wanting, 
that this character, odious on the side of lawless in- 
dulgence, has its base in simple appetite, and in no 
degree carries the softening accompaniments of gentle- 
ness or compassion. 

In the Odyssey it is contrived that the Suitors, before 
they are put to death, shall offer gifts to Penelope ; 
perhaps by way of partial requital for the waste of the 
substance of Odysseus. With this view, the Queen 4 
issues from her chamber, like to Artemis or golden 
Aphrodite. Aphrodite is introduced here, because pas- 
sion was the motive of the Suitors.. But the deity, at 
whose suggestion Penelope thus adorned herself, was 
Pallas. Had Aphrodite been worshipped in Greece, 
this office surely would have fallen to her. It is yet 
more noteworthy, that the whole design is executed 
by Pallas. Penelope is lulled to sleep ; and then Pallas 
applies ambrosion to her face, c such as Aphrodite 
uses when she goes among the Graces.' But Aphrodite 
herself is excluded from the entire process. 

Even in the Lay of the Net, apparently a legend 
of the Eastern mythology, the Poet seems to intend 

1 II. v. 429 ; xxii. 470. 2 II. v. 422-425. 

3 II. iii. 499-517. * Od. xvii. 37. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. $1$ 

to make the guilty pair ridiculous by sending them off, 
when released, so rapidly and in silence 1 . 

9. She is never invested with any of the higher 
attributes, such as foreknowledge, omnipresence, or 
command over the mind of man. Her only power 
seems to be that of stimulating passion 2 . 

10. We now know that the planetary worship of the 
Assyrians was brought by the Phoenicians into Greece, 
and that each deity was associated with a particular 
metal. We find in Cyprus, the land of copper, with 
a Phoenician colony, the worship of Aphrodite. We 
may safely then refer the origin of this Olympian per- 
sonage to the Assyrian mythology. 

The local indications of her worship, as proceeding 
from the East, are in accordance with the traditions 
which under the names of Astarte, Ashtoreth, Mylitta, 
Mitra, exhibit to us a similar character as held in 
honour there. The marriage with Hephaistos bears a 
similar witness ; the more remarkable, because it is only 
recognised in the mythology of the Outer world, drawn 
from the Phoenicians, while in the Iliad he is the suitor 
of Charis. Aphrodite, however, is placed by Homer 
in relation with the Charites, Eastern personages, whose 
name corresponds with the Sanscrit Harits, meaning 
originally c bright, 3 and afterwards the horses of the 
dawn 3 . In very late mythology, Aphrodite appears as 
the daughter of Poseidon 4 , and thus acquires a new 
note of Eastern origin. 

In historic Greece, we find the double tradition of 
the heavenly and the promiscuous Aphrodite. It would 

1 Od. viii. 360. 2 II. xiv. 215-217; xxiv. 30. 

3 Max Miiller, Lect. on Language, Second Series, p, 370. 

4 Pausanias, Corinthiaca. 



31 6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

seem as though any elements of the former character, 
known to Homer, were assigned by him to his chaste 
Artemis, the rival in beauty of his Aphrodite. The 
pure tradition was, according to the view of Max 
Muller, the original basis of the character of Aphrodite ; 
and he thinks that it was c afterwards debased by an 
admixture of Syrian mythology 1 / He gives to this 
word his favourite meaning of the c dawn/ Some old 
traditions however connect Aphrodite as Astarte with 
the Moon 2 . There has been therefore an intermixture 
of the traditions., which ultimately distributed them- 
selves between Artemis, Aphrodite, and Persephone; 
and there is a certain correspondence of the two first, 
as we find them in Homer, with the vulgar and the 
heavenly Aphrodite of later times respectively.. 

Of the name there seems to be no sign in the 
Albanian tongue, which brings down to us so much 
of the old speech of the Pelasgoi. But the root of the 
name Venus is found in the Gegian branch of the 
language 3 . 

Dione, the mother of Aphrodite, resides in Olympos. 
Homer affords us no means of tracing her origin or 
functions ; but from other evidence we have been enabled 
to interpret her as a Nature -Power of the Pelasgian 
worship. If this is so, then probably we are to consider 
her motherhood to be assigned to her, not in virtue 
of that Syrian character of Aphrodite, which we trace 
in the South, but of the place which Aphrodite (or 

1 Lectures, Second Series, p. 373. 

2 Hahn, Albanesische Studien, p. 250. ' Wir glauben diese Ver- 
bindung mit dem in so vielen Sprachen dem Hahnrei zukom- 
menden Hornern zusammen stellen zu diirfen.' p. 251. See Smith, 
Diet. Bibl., Art. Ashtoreth. 3 Hahn, ibid. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. <$lj 

Venus) appears to have held in the Trojan system, and 
therefore in the Pelasgian cultus of the Nature-Powers. 



Section XV. Dionusos. 

The traditions of Dionusos in Homer are as dark as 
they are slight. On the one hand he is the son of 
Semele ; and we have no case in the Homeric Theogony 
where a deity is born of a woman : but Semele is men- 
tioned in the list given by Zeus among the mortal 
mothers of his children, who stand separate from the 
goddess mothers. She comes between the unnamed 
mother of Minos, and Alcmene 1 ; and the birth of 
Dionusos thus appears to be parallel with that of 
Heracles. Dionusos is, however, called in this passage 
c a joy to mortals ;' which may of itself faintly seem to 
sever him from the race. Neither is there in the 
Poems any clearly divine act assigned to him. The 
Homeric Hymn to Hermes treats Semele as the daughter 
or descendant of Kadmos 2 . 

But on the other hand there is a great resemblance 
between the good offices of Metis to him and to 
Hephaistos 3 . When the terrible Lucourgos attacks 
and scourges his nurses, he trembling takes refuge in 
the sea; and Thetis receives him in her bosom 4 . 
This is confirmed indirectly by the Odyssey 5 , which 
represents him as the giver to that goddess of the 
golden urn which she used for the ashes of Achilles; 
doubtless in requital for her services, which are 
thoroughly in keeping with her character as the great 

1 II. xiv. 323-325. 2 v. 57. 

3 See supra, Sect. Hephaistos. * II. vi. 136. 5 Od. xxiv. 74. 



31 8 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

mediatress in matters respecting contrasted or com- 
peting worships. 

The conclusive test however is found in this, 
that the recital concerning Lucourgos is offered to 
illustrate a class of cases where outrage is offered by- 
mortals to deities; and the scourging of his nurses 
is treated as an offence to himself, for which, accord- 
ingly, not however by him, but by Zeus, Lucourgos was 
smitten with blindness, and then cut off prematurely \ 
Homer must therefore be understood to include him in 
the phrase c gods of heaven/ 

In the Odyssey we have a probable sign of his wor- 
ship. Ariadne is put to death in Die, supposed to be 
Naxos, by Artemis, when Theseus is carrying her to 
Athens. Artemis does this c upon the testimony of 
Dionusos V The only probable construction of these 
words which offers itself is, that Theseus landed with 
Ariadne in Naxos, as Paris had landed with Helen in 
Cranae, and that Dionusos procured the intervention of 
Artemis to avenge a meditated profanation ; which 
presumes that the island, or some place in it, was 
sacred to him. It is also likely, that the epithet rjyddeov 
applied to the Nuseian mount, means that it was sacred 
to him as a god. 

Nagelsbach observes - 3 , that Homer places neither him 
nor Demeter in Olympos by any distinct recital or 
declaration. But in both cases the recognition of 
deity, coupled with the personal relation to Zeus, appears 
to make good the title. 

At the same time, I have pointed out an incon- 
sistency which I do not know how to rectify. The 
traditions are not clcsely pieced together. 
1 II. vi. 129-140. 2 Od. xi. 321-325. 3 Horn. Theol. p. 115. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 319 

What is most clear about Dionusos in Homer is, 
first, that his worship was extremely recent ; secondly, 
that it made its appearance in Thrace * 5 to which 
belongs the Nuse'ian mountain ; thirdly, that it was 
violently opposed on its introduction, a fact of which 
we have other records, as for example, in the Bacchse 
of Euripides. 

Lucourgos, who resisted and punished it, was the 
son of Druas ; and Druas was alive and a warrior in 
the youth of Nestor. Consequently, Dionusos was an 
infant, that is, his worship was in its infancy, not more 
than two generations before the War of Troy. The 
Hymn addressed to Dionusos describes how Tursenians 
found him on the shore, and brought him over sea. 
The colouring of this legend is Phoenician ; as is that 
of the legend, if such there were, that gave him the isle 
of Naxos as the seat of his worship. It is also on the 
sea shore that he appears, according to Homer; and it 
is in Thrace, where there would seem to have been 
Phoenician manufactures of metal. Again, he obtains 
a work of art, probably Phoenician, from Hephaistos 2 , 
just as does Phaidimos, the king of the Sidonians 3 . 
And the name of Semele 4 itself, according to general 
traditions, supports the Phoenician association thus 
established at a variety of points. 

We cannot perhaps treat the Dionusos of Homer as 
the discoverer of wine, and father of its use, in Greece , 
for it is universal and familiar, while he appears to be 
but local and as yet strange. The novel feature, which 
connects itself with his name, seems to be the use of 
wine by women ; and the effect produced, in an extra- 

1 Nagelsbach, p. 9. 2 Od. xxiv. 74. 3 Od. iv. 615-619. 
* Hymn to Dionusos, v. 37. 



320 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

ordinary and furious excitement, which might well 
justify not only jealousy, but even forcible resistance to 
demoralising orgies. It seems, then, as if this usage 
was introduced by immigrants of a race comparatively 
wealthy and luxurious, and was resisted by, or on behalf 
of, the older and simpler population. 

The later account of Hesiod makes Dionusos the 
husband of Ariadne, who was the daughter of Minos. 
The poet of Ascra thus places him within the circle of 
Phoenician traditions. 

Though Homer has represented this personage as a 
god, and though, as we see, traces of his worship are not 
wanting, yet the human maternity might possibly indi- 
cate that we should do best to regard him as a deified 
mortal, rather than as a god from the beginning of his 
existence. In this case, we are to suppose that the 
fascination of the usage he introduced not only proved 
so powerful as to overrule all opposition, but likewise 
generated a halo which was reflected on his birth, and 
caused his deification by a process more rapid than that 
which took effect upon Heracles or the Tyndarids. In 
the later time, greater consistency was given to the 
legend by a parallel deification of Semele, his mother. 

Homer has attached no ennobling epithet or circum- 
stance of dignity to the name of Dionusos, unless we 
so regard the eulogy of Zeus 1 under an excess of ex- 
citement. The Poet acts in this case as in the cases 
of Ares and Aphrodite ; since he has no reverence for 
either drunkenness, or violence, or lust. 

1 II. xiv. 325. 






VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. $11 



Section XVI. Helios, or the Sun. 

It is sometimes stated, that Helios, or the Sun, does 
not appear as a god in the Iliad, but only in the 
Odyssey. This is not so. As far as the Odyssey is 
concerned, he appears only in the Outer, not in the 
Inner, world. In the Iliad his personality is undeni- 
able, though very faint. The Sun hearing all, as well as 
seeing all, is certainly a person *. 

Again, all will remember the long day of the Iliad, 
with the close of which the successes of the Trojans 
were to end. When the appointed moment came, at 
the command of Here the Sun went, unwillingly 2 , to 
his rest beside the Ocean stream. 

Here then he is a person, though in the background. 
In the Odyssey, he reappears with more marked effect. 
In the Lay of Demodocos, it is he who first makes 
known to Hephaistos the intimacy of Ares with Aphro- 
dite 3 , and then undertakes to act as spy upon the 
guilty couple. The Island of Thrinakie, placed by 
Homer not far from the entrance to the Euxine, is 
his island 4 . Here are his oxen, and his sheep, tended 
by the care of his daughters, whose mother was 
Neaira, and who were called Phaethusa and Lampetie 5 . 
These animals the crew of Odysseus had been warned 
on no account to molest. Under the direst pressure 
of famine 6 , however, they at length slew certain of 
the oxen; having first vowed that on their return to 

1 II. iii. 277. 2 II. xviii. 239. 3 II. xviii. 204, 270. 

4 Od. xii. 261, 274. 5 Od. xi. 132. 6 Od. xii. 330, 353. 

Y 



322 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Ithaca 1 they would build a temple to the Sun and store 
it richly- a sign, it may be remembered, that such an 
edifice would be a novelty in the island. Portents, 
such as we nowhere else encounter in the Poems, wait 
upon the deed; the hides of the animals creep about, 
and the flesh, even when roasted, lows upon the spits 2 . 
Notwithstanding the Sun's all-seeing function, it is 
Lampetie who carries him the news. It seems possible, 
however, as Odysseus was asleep, that we are to under- 
stand the deed to have been done by night. The god 
makes his complaint in the court of the Immortals, 
to which he is thus proved to belong 3 ; and he de- 
mands reparation for the loss of his oxen, with whom 
c he disported himself night and morning/ Failing it, 
he declares that he will thenceforward shine in Hades. 
Zeus at once promises to destroy the crew at sea, which 
is done accordingly 4 . 

The extraordinary sanctity ascribed to these oxen is 
wholly alien to the genius of the Greek mythology. 
But when we turn to the East, and observe that Phoenicia 
was impregnated with Egyptian traditions, we find the 
sacredness of the ox, and its relation to the Sun, indi- 
cated in the consecration of Apis to Osiris ; while the 
function of the ox in agriculture also falls in with the 
earlier form of the religion, which appears to have 
regarded Isis as the land, or passive principle, and 
Osiris as the Nile-god, who taught to the Egyptians the 
use of the plough. 

And again, we find in the temple of Jerusalem, for 
the erection of which Solomon called in the aid of 
Phoenician workmen, the forms of twelve oxen 5 , sup- 

1 Od. xii, 345. 2 Od. xii. 394. 3 Od. xii. 377. 

4 Od. xii. 403-419. 5 1 Kings vii. 24, 25, 44. 



■VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 323 

porting a brazen sea K These were made by King 
Hiram of Tyre ; and they symbolise at once the Egyp- 
tian religion, with other Oriental forms of fable, and 
the maritime pursuits of the Phoenicians. 

It is also remarkable, that the use of the ox for meat 
appears to cease in the Outer world of the Odyssey. 
In the land of the Cyclops, we find only sheep and 
goats. And it is with mutton only that Kirke stocks 
the vessel of Odysseus, 

All these indications agree together. In other re- 
spects, too, Helios is marked as an Eastern god. He 
is the father of Aietes, and of Kirke, dwelling near the 
Eastern Okeanos 2 ; and the island of Aiaie is indicated 
as the place of his rising 3 . The fact of his sporting 
with the oxen night and morning goes far to show that 
Homer did not think the earth a plane, but round, 
perhaps as upon a cylinder, and believed that the West 
and East were in contact. But only in the East does 
he give the Sun a dwelling. Aietes, the son of Helios, 
carries the exclusively Phoenician epithet of dkooQpm: 

Further, we may notice that, as long as the Voyage of 
Odysseus is in the West and North, we hear nothing 
of the Sun. Poseidon rules in the land of the Cyclops, 
stirs the northern sea into a tempest, and is supreme 
in Scherie. It is in Aiaie, and Thrinakie, that we are 
brought into contact with this deity, and both these 
islands appear to lie in Homer's East. 

Thus the Sun, by many concurrent signs, is marked 
out to us as an Eastern deity. There is not in the 
Odyssey the faintest trace of his identification with 
Apollo. The traditions respecting him were doubtless 
conveyed by the Phoenicians; but we cannot say that 

1 1 Kings vii. 13. 2 Od. x. 137. 3 Od. xii. 4. 

Y % 



324 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

they were Phoenician in themselves. The division of 
regions to which I have adverted, seems to point to 
Poseidon as the god of Phoinikes proper, and to Helios 
as the god of the Canaanitish population of Syria to 
the Eastward. Among them it is not improbable that, 
at the period represented by Homer, the Egyptian 
belief extensively prevailed, but Assyrian elements may 
also enter into this conception. 

In the Iliad, though not in the Odyssey, we have 
a sign of the process which finally incorporated the 
traditions of Apollo with the Sun ; while the humani- 
tarian spirit of the Olympian system of Homer seems 
to have resisted the operation. The plague of the First 
Book can hardly represent anything else than the 
miasma rising from the marshes of the Troad, and 
the arrows of Apollo are the rays of the sun causing 
the moisture to evaporate. We find a family of epi- 
thets applied to Apollo, which evidently glance at the 
solar properties: Hekaergos, Hekatebolos, Heke- 
bolos. It is somewhat remarkable that these epithets, 
which are only used twenty-five times in the other 
forty-seven books of the Poems, are met twelve times 
in the First Iliad alone. It is also likely that the 
epithet Phoibos may glance at the relation between 
Apollo and the Sun, already recognised beyond the 
borders of Greece, and possibly also in the old Pelasgian 
religion of the Peninsula.' Again we have the term 
Lukabas applied to the.. yean It is probable that in the 
religion of Troy, where Nature- worship seems to have 
prevailed more largely, Apollo and the Sun were iden- 
tified, and that this union made it convenient for the 
Poet to place Apollo on the Trojan side in the war. 
Whilst Poseidon built the walls of Troy for King 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 325 

Laomedon, Apollo fed his oxen ; and we have seen the 
close relation between these animals and the worship 
of the Sun. And this interpretation accounts for what 
otherwise would be most difficult to explain : I mean 
the fact that Helios does not appear in the Theomachy, 
nor does he under that name take part in the war, 
though his inclination towards the Trojans is plainly 
declared. Troy was probably a sort of meeting-point 
for Greek and Asiatic systems. But in the Phoeni- 
cian or Syrian mythology of the Outer world, Apollo 
and Helios can appear together, because the Eastern 
conception of the latter ran no risk of being confounded 
in the Greek mind with the purely anthropomorphic 
idea of the true Homeric Apollo. 



Section XVII. Hebl 

Hebe is a deity, whose offices are very clearly set 
forth, but whom we can scarcely consider as having a 
perceptible root in any tradition beyond the circle of 
the Greek mythology. 

She is the Cup-bearer, who pours out nectar for the 
gods 1 . She puts together the parts of the chariot of 
Here, though Here herself yokes the horses to it, before 
her descent to the field of battle 2 . She performs the 
offices of the bath for Ares, after he has been healed by 
Paieon 3 . Again, we find her in the Eleventh Odyssey, 
as the celestial bride of Heracles, and in an obelised 
verse, as the daughter of Zeus and Here 4 . 

Her offices are exclusively Olympian; and she is 

1 II. iv. 2. 2 II. v. 722, 731. 

3 II. v. 905. * Od. xi. 602-604. 



326 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

nowhere brought into relations with our mortal state ; 
one sign among many that she is probably to be re- 
garded as a purely ideal conception. 

Her name in Greek expresses youth adult, or full 
age just attained. Her marriage with Heracles appears 
to signify that the divine gift of an unending youth 
is imparted to him when he reaches Olympos 1 . Homer 
assigns to her the epithet callisphuros, prettily 
ancled, which he only gives to those who are to be 
understood as youthful persons ; Danae, Ino, and 
Marpessa 2 . 

She may well be conceived as the daughter of Zeus 
in that general sense, according to which he is the 
father of divinities in general; and thus it must be, 
in all likelihood, that the Muses, the Hours, and the 
Nymphs in general are his daughters. But these per- 
sonages are not daughters of Here, who has but few 
children, and those due apparently to special traditions. 
In truth she expresses the idea of youth 3 , and is perhaps 
but a thought seized and personified. There is no note 
in Homer of her worship on earth, which however is 
mentioned by Strabo and Pausanias: and Hahn finds 
no trace of her in the Albanian language. 

It is the distinct and clear, though simple, account 
given by Homer of her functions, which seems to give 
her a place in the Olympian court upon one of the 
twenty thrones of Hephaistos. 

1 Hes. Theog. 944-955. Ov. Met. ix. 400. 

2 II. xiv. 319 ; ix. 553. Od. v. 333. 

3 Nagelsbach, Horn. Theol. p. 41. 






VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. $%>] 



Section XVIII. Themis. 

Slightly as her outline is drawn, we cannot refuse 
to reckon Themis among the ordinary members of the 
Olympian Court, for the simple reason that we find 
her actually installed there. When, in the absence of 
Zeus, Here enters the company of the Immortals, and 
they rise in honour of her 1 , it is from Themis, who 
came first to meet her, that she accepts the cup of 
greeting. This is evidently because she had been pre- 
siding : for Here, who is troubled at the view, invites 
her to continue to preside 2 . 

Again, in the Twentieth Iliad, all the deities, in- 
cluding the minor Nature-Powers (whom Homer prob- 
ably recognises as divine because they continued to 
hold their ground in local worship), are invited to the 
Great Assembly which is to decide finally the fate of 
Troy: and it is Themis who summons them 3 . 

In the Second Odyssey, Telemachos describes himself 
as making his prayer to Zeus, and to Themis, who 
collects and dissolves public assemblies generally. 

Nevertheless, I apprehend we are not to look for 
her origin in any foreign traditions, but simply to re- 
gard her as a creation of the Hellenic mind 4 , and 
probably of the mind of our Poet himself. Like Hebe 
she represents, in the main, the deification of an im- 
personated idea 5 . 

In reference to terrestrial affairs, the name Themis 
signifies civil right, and is the basis on which are 

1 II. xv. 85. 2 II. xv. 95. 3 II. XX. 4. 

* Od. ii. 68, 69. 5 Welcker, Gr. Gotterlehre, i. 700. 



328 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

founded the relations of the whole political and social 
order. If Olympos was to be fashioned into a quasi- 
commonwealth, such a personage could hardly be dis- 
pensed with in its formation, among a race with whom 
the political spirit was so strong as among the Greeks 
of the heroic age. 

Even Hestie, who represents the principle of the 
family order, in the same way as Themis represents 
the groundwork of the State, though she is not imper- 
sonated by Homer, yet is at the least on her way to 
impersonation, and attains fully to it after his time. 
She was less necessary to the theogonic scheme of the 
Poet j for, though the family is involved in the Olympian 
arrangements, it does not embrace the whole of them, 
whereas Olympos gives the complete picture of a Court 
and a Polity. 

Harm 1 derives the name of Themis from defx, c l 
speak,' and observes that the statue of this deity was 
placed over against the bema of the orators in Athens. 



Section XIX. Paieon. 

In the Fifth Iliad, Dione recites that when Aides, 
wounded by Heracles, repaired to Olympos, Paieon 
(or Paian) applied anodyne drugs to his shoulder, and 
healed him 2 . It is evident that the presence of this 
deity there, as the healer, was regarded by the Poet 
as habitual^ for when Ares has been wounded by 
Diomed, and appears in the palace of Zeus, his father, 
after rebuking him, commands Paieon 3 to heal him, 
which accordingly is done forthwith, as by one at hand. 

1 Alban. Studien, p. 253. 2 II. v. 395-402. 3 II. v. 399. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 329 

In the Fourth Odyssey, Helen, after using the drug, 
which produces the effect of opium, and may indeed 
be opium, states that she obtained it from the Egyptian 
Poludamna, wife of Thon x ; and adds that every 
Egyptian is eminently a physician, since they are of 
the race of Paieon. 

Apollo is a healer as well as Paieon : but while Paieon 
heals by instrumental causes after the manner of a 
man, Apollo heals Glaucos immediately, as by a divine 
action 2 . 

The Phaiakes are called angchitheor, near to divine, 
because the royal house of Alkinoos is descended from 
Poseidon. Something like this may be meant with 
respect to the Egyptians and Paieon: or just possibly 
they may be called children of Paieon for no other 
reason than their medical skill, without actually imply- 
ing that the traditions relating to the person of Paieon 
were Egyptian. 

But the word Paieon, which is the name of this deity, 
is also twice used in the Iliad for a hymn : first for the 
hymn of purgation, addressed to Apollo, after the offence 
of the First Book has been expiated ; secondly for the 
hymn of triumph sung by the Greek soldiers over the 
lifeless body of Hector 3 . 

A singular relation is thus established between Paieon 
and Apollo, somewhat like that between the Sun and 
the same deity ; as though Homer had not been willing 
to treat as amalgamated, or even had actually severed 
into two personages traditions which had already, and 
elsewhere, been combined; for the reason that parts 
of them did not seem to be of sufficient elevation to 

1 Od. iv. 227 seqq. 2 See supra, sect. viii. 

3 II. i. 473 ; xxii. 381, 



330 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

suit the rest, and to be proper for the equipment of so 
gorgeous a figure as his Apollo. 

The name paian became subsequently the estab- 
lished name of those Hymns to Apollo, which were 
sung in connection with victory and deliverance, espe- 
cially, as it seems, upon a completed act of puri- 
fication 1 . 

Welcker observes that, even down to a late epoch, 
the separate personality of Paieon had not altogether 
been submerged, as Cicero mentions a statue to him 2 . 

It is however possible that he may be, like Hebe, 
a purely ideal personage, not rooted in former or in 
foreign tradition, and representing in a physical way 
the office of healing in Olympos itself, as Hebe repre- 
sents the faculty of youth among the divine race. 

Section XX. Iris. 

Iris, constantly introduced in the Iliad as the ordi- 
nary messenger between Olympos and mankind, and 
likewise among the gods themselves, is nowhere men- 
tioned in the Odyssey. Yet the name of Iros is given 
to Arnaios the vagrant, because it naturally fell to him 
to circulate messages and news; and it is evidently 
derived from, or from the same source with, the name 
of this deity 3 . 

Her office in the Iliad is not exclusive. Themis is 
the pursuivant who summons the gods to the great 
assembly 4 ; and Hermes is the envoy or agent who, in 

1 Muller's Dorians, vol. i. pp. 319, 320. (Transl.) 

2 Welcker, Gr. Gotteslehre, vol. i. p. 695. 

3 Od. xviii. 7. 4 II. xx. 4. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLFMPOS. 33 1 

consequence of the general resolution of the gods re- 
specting the body of Hector, is employed to conduct 
Priam to and from the presence of Achilles 1 . 

In the Odyssey, Zeus does not act in his individual 
capacity, but only as head of the Olympian Court ; and 
Iris is his personal messenger rather than the agent or 
envoy of the Olympian Court. There is therefore no 
obvious place for her in a poem where the conduct of 
affairs rests, in the Greek sphere, with Athene, and 
beyond that sphere either with Poseidon, or with the 
collective body of the gods. 

The name of Iris is also the Greek name for the 
rainbow; and the correspondence is very remarkable 
between her office of messenger from heaven to man, 
and the traditional function of the rainbow as a sign 
that the great covenants of Nature remain undisturbed 2 . 
As it is only by the tradition recorded in Scripture that 
the rainbow has this meaning, and not by any obvious 
natural significance, it appears hard to explain how 
Homer came to combine the two ideas, except by sup- 
posing that his race drew the association from the same 
early source from which Moses and the earlier de- 
scendants of Abraham obtained it. 

It is true that -Homer nowhere recognises the relation 
of the Messenger-Goddess to the rainbow. He does 
not, even on any high occasion, assign to her an epithet 
of colour. But this is precisely of a piece with his 
manner of separating the deities of his anthropomor- 
phic system from the mere Nature-Powers of other 
theogonies : his Zeus from the Air, his Apollo from the 
Sun, his Artemis from the Moon. Iris as the Rainbow 
would have been wholly out of place in Olympos. 
1 II. xxiv. 333 seqq. 2 Genesis ix. 12-15. 



$$1 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

This separation from the older deities he has marked, 
in the case of Iris, after a most curious fashion. In the 
Twenty-third Iliad 1 , she carries to the palace of Ze- 
phuros the prayer of Achilles for a Wind to consume 
the pyre of Patroclos. She finds the Winds at table, 
and they eagerly solicit her to sit and feast with them. 
She answers that she has not time : if she tarries, she 
will lose her share of a banquet which the Ethiopians 
are just about to provide in their country for the Immor- 
tals. This want of time is evidently an excuse devised by 
good manners : in truth, the higher deity of the Olym- 
pian order will not stoop to keep company with the 
mere agents of Nature. And this, although Homer has 
given them animation, for Boreas is the Sire of the 
Trojan mares 2 . His impersonation, then, was not a 
human one, like that of the Olympian system. 

In the case just mentioned, the prayer of Achilles 
is addressed to the Winds. But apparently the Poet 
does not allow them the faculty of hearing when they 
are invoked ; for it is Iris who, spontaneously it appears, 
charges herself with the supplication, and in the cha- 
racter of metanggelos, inter-messenger, carries it 
to them. 

In one 3 other case, when she appears to Helen, and 
exhorts her to repair to the Wall of Troy, no one is 
named as sending her ; but as she has here the title of 
messenger expressly attached to her name, it is prob- 
able that we are to understand she is despatched by 
Zeus. 

When, however, Aphrodite is wounded by Diomed, 
in the Fifth Iliad, Iris comes to her assistance 4 , and 

1 198-212. 2 II. xx. 223. 3 II. iii. 121. 

4 353, 365. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. $<$<$ 

here, without doubt because her action is spontaneous, 
she is not called messenger. She drives the chariot of 
Ares, which carries the wounded goddess to Olympos. 

Though Iris hears prayer, she does not appear to be 
an object of worship, and her spontaneous action is 
confined to the business of the gods. It serves perhaps 
additionally to mark her Hellenic character that, when 
she appears to Achilles, she is without disguise, and is 
addressed by him in her proper character 1 ; but when 
she addresses 2 Priam it is with the voice of Polites, 
and she comes 3 before Helen in the character of her 
sister-in-law Laodike. When she carries the order of 
Zeus to Priam, in the Twenty-fourth Book, she an- 
nounces herself as the messenger of Zeus, but there is 
no proof or even sign of his being acquainted with her 
personally 4 . 

Her mission to Achilles is remarkable, because she is 
sent by Here. In this instance alone, she obeys the 
order of a deity other than Zeus 5 . It is one of the 
instances in which Here exhibits a command over 
aerial phenomena, apparently in virtue of her wifehood ; 
and it bears an independent witness to the connection 
between Iris and the rainbow. 

In every other case (I think) Iris is sent personally 
by Zeus, from the message for Priam in the Second 
Book of the Iliad, to those for Thetis 6 and Priam in 
the Twenty-fourth. 

By much the most important errand with which she 
is intrusted is the mission to Poseidon in the Fifteenth 
Iliad, where she carries the order for his withdrawal 
from the field of battle. Supporting it with skill and 

1 II. xviii. 182. 2 II. ii. 791. 3 II. iii. 121. 

4 11. xxiv. 173. • 5 II. xviii. 268. 6 II. xxiv. 77. 



334 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

persuasiveness, she by these means induces him to 
obey ] . 

Section XXI. Thetis. 

Thetis is not to be regarded as properly an Olym- 
pian deity in the restricted sense of the phrase ; yet 
by reason of her great influence in the Iliad, she is 
entitled to a marked position of her own. 

The origin of Thetis in Homer is elemental only, 
and her attributes as a goddess are feeble. She does 
not act upon the course of Nature ; she does not in- 
fluence the mind : her powers of knowledge and vision 
are limited ■ she deplores her own lot among the Im- 
mortals j she is subject to weeping; she was married 
to Peleus much against her will. In no single instance 
throughout the Iliad does she exercise any divine power : 
nor is there in the Poem the faintest sign of worship 
as paid to her in any place. 

But while her power, strictly so called, is thus bounded, 
her influence and consequence are immense. She is the 
pet deity of the Poet ; or rather the engine he has chosen 
to carry through his theurgic process. It is her request 
to Hephaistos, that in a moment sets him to work 
upon the arms for Achilles; and when, in answer to 
the summons of Zeus, she repairs to Olympos, she is 
received with an extraordinary respect. But the chief 
act performed by her is the exercise of influence over 
Zeus in the First Book, where she overcomes his undis- 
guised reluctance to act, growing out of his fears of a 
conjugal quarrel j and obtains his assent to her petition 
or demand, that the Trojans may prevail in the war, 

1 II. xv. T57-219. 



1 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 33$ 

until the Greeks shall have made full reparation to 
her son Achilles 1 . 

This is termed Zgaio-ios aprj 2 ; a prayer lying outside 
the provisions of destiny and the moral order, or one 
which caused them to vary from their course. The 
meaning of the phrase is not hard to discover. The 
cause of the Trojans in the war was radically unjust. 
The moral law required their discomfiture. In this 
channel ran the main stream of justice and of Provi- 
dence. The request of Thetis was not in itself unjust, 
for her son, who had so powerfully fought for the just 
cause, had been deeply wronged by Agamemnon, the 
head of the Greeks. But it tended to delay the con- 
summation of a greater justice in a world-wide quarrel j 
and for a time it set aside the moral purpose of divine 
government. Interposing a secondary obstacle, it de- 
flected the current from its course; and an immense 
influence . must be supposed to have been possessed by 
Thetis, who, and who alone, by her personal interven- 
tion, produced this extraordinary effect. 

While she is thus a deity of far greater importance 
than her rank in the preternatural order would lead us 
to suppose j there is no personage, either sublunary or 
celestial, that appears to bear more or deeper marks of 
the moulding hand of the Poet. Some find in her only 
a transposition of the primitive but obsolete deity 
Tethus, the wife of old Okeanos. Her name Thetis 
also appears to be found in the deti of the Albanian 
tongue, meaning the sea 3 . On the other hand, as one 
of some thirty or forty daughters of Nereus, himself an 
elemental god, though practically superseded by Posei- 

1 II. i. 505-510. 2 II. xv. 598. 

3 Hahn, Alban. Studien. p. 252. 



2$6 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. 

don, there is really no regular place for her in Olympos. 
She has all the appearance of a character shaped and 
turned to account for the purposes of the Poem : while, 
at the same time, there are functions ascribed to her 
which seem to imply a higher parentage than that 
assigned to her, and to support the hypothesis which 
makes her a reflection, as it were, of an older deity. 
For though, of the regular Olympian divinities, Aphro- 
dite is among the lowest, she is expressly declared to 
be of a higher order than Thetis 1 . 

In her marriage to Peleus, there is nothing that re- 
sembles the clandestine or lawless and transitory con- 
nections with mortals, that are ascribed to Demeter, to 
Aphrodite, and to the Nymphs. It is the result of 
solemn divine Counsel 2 , and it is celebrated by the 
whole Olympian Court. She had habitually sat 3 as 
Queen in the palace of Phthie, and in the discharge of 
her motherly cares she had supplied Achilles with a 
chest of garments for the war 4 . Though at first sight 
the birth of Achilles may seem to be the counterpart 
of that of ^Eneas, they are really opposed in every 
feature : the one is lawful, solemn, permanent wedlock, 
the other occasional and secret lust. Thetis herself, 
indeed, appears to have been reluctant at the time to 
marry Peleus j and she rendered obedience only to an 
order of the gods in general. 

The purpose of the Poet in giving this high and un- 
exampled sanction to the union, is not difficult to trace. 
For her agency is the hinge on which turns, in the first 
place, the reconciliation of the old and the new The- 
ogonies; in the second, of the Pelasgic and the Hel- 

1 II. xx. 106. 2 II. xviii. 85; xxiv. 59. 

3 II. i. 396 ;• xvi. 574. 4 II. xvi. 221-224. 



1 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 337 

lenic nationalities ; in the third, of the rival purposes 
of the gods (so far as the general scheme of Homer 
admitted them) with regard to Troy. I think we may 
find, that the marriage of Peleus to Thetis signifies and 
records the union, both on earth and in Olympos, of 
the Pelasgian and Hellenic systems. 

The worship of Zeus, as we know, was Pelasgian, 
and therefore pre-Hellenic. The revolt of the three 
great deities of the new scheme, Here, Athene, and 
Poseidon, against him, seems to signify the tendency 
of the new worship, with its anthropomorphic or human- 
ising forces, to effect the overthrow of the former creed, 
cherished by the older but less intelligent and less 
powerful population. And the pure Nature-Powers 
indeed disappear ; but Zeus, whose relation with Nature 
is in its most refined region, that of air, and who repre- 
sents, too, the central principle of Theism, survives the 
change. The agency employed for his relief is that of 
the hundred-handed giant, called Briareus by the gods, 
that is, in relation to the old religion, but Aigaion by 
men, that is, under the new 1 . It seems to be in virtue 
of his being a giant that he is the son of Poseidon ; but 
his having a place both in the old and the new Theogo- 
nies evidently fits him to be the reconciler, and his 
being under the influence of Thetis, which is shown 
by his obeying her call, harmonises with her double 
relation. 

That relation is again indicated by her good offices 
to the child Hephaistos, whose adoption into the 
Hellenic Theogony, notwithstanding his Pelasgian asso- 
ciations and his leaning to an elemental character, she 
seems to have procured 2 . 
1 II. i. 403. 2 II. xviii. 394-407. See sect. ix. Hephaistos. 

Z 



338 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

And in yet a third instance do we find her discharg- 
ing a like office. Such were the troubles excited by the 
introduction of the worship of Dionusos, that it seems 
to have been all but cast out of the country ; but, as 
we have already seen, she gave him a refuge, which he 
appears to have requited with the gift of a golden (or 
gilded) amphora, the work of Hephaistos \ 

For this office of reconciler between the creeds and 
ideas of the two nationalities, she has been carefully 
prepared by the fancy and skill of the Poet. Inde- 
pendently of the apparent association with Tethus, she 
is rooted in the Pelasgian system by her owning Nereus 
for a father. An ample counterpoise, however, has 
been provided, and in part by a most curious contriv- 
ance. She is the mother of Achilles, who is himself 
the highest specimen of the pure Hellenic type, and 
whose Phthian country is, in a pre-eminent sense, 
already the land of Hellenes and Achaians. 

Something, however, is added, that the transition may 
not be too abrupt, and that an Hellenic colour may be 
made to attach even to the extraction of the great hero. 

In the Eighteenth Iliad 2 , when his mother issues 
from the depths, she is followed by a long train of sisters ; 
and the names of no less than thirty-three of them are 
given in a string. No catalogue of names approaching 
to this length is to be found anywhere in Homer. The 
nearest to it is in the Eighth Odyssey, where he de- 
scribes his Phaiakes repairing to their Games 3 . Here 
he gives in rapid succession the proper names of sixteen 
youths of Scherie. On examination, we find that every 
one of them has relation to ships and navigation. It is 

1 II. vi. 136. Od. xxiv. 73. 2 II. xviii. 39-49. 

3 Od. viii. 111-116. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 339 

therefore evident that the long list has a meaning. He 
desires to illustrate the especial, if not exclusive, devo- 
tion of the people to nautical pursuits. Now, on ex- 
amining in a similar manner the catalogue of Nereids, 
we find that their names, instead of being, as is often 
the case with his Immortals, of an etymology that 
cannot be ascertained, are in nearly every instance 
pure Hellenic appellations, and that they even include 
the name Doris 1 . It is extremely difficult to suppose 
that Homer should have deviated so widely from his 
usual practice as to these lists, without a reason. And 
the reason seems to be obvious ; namely, his desire to 
give a sort of Hellenic character to the family of Ne- 
reus, (whose name he never introduces except once in 
the patronymic,) as the maternal ancestry of Achilles. 

From the obligations thus conferred, Thetis is in 
a condition to use urgency, though not authority, with 
Zeus ; and honour is done to her son at the expense of 
the Greek army, notwithstanding the murmurs and 
devices of the Hellenising deities. In like manner, she 
has no difficulty in obtaining from Hephaistos, on a 
similar ground, the gift of the Arms. In each case it 
is not a mere act of grace and favour, but the requital of 
a benefit received. In the case of Zeus, it is the more 
noteworthy, because the prayer of Thetis is declared to 
be in the nature of a deviation from the appointed 
course of destiny 2 , which had long ago fixed the down- 
fall of Troy 3 . And again he signifies his attachment 
to her, when, though most of the gods recommended 
that the body of Hector should be removed by stealth, 
he arranges that she shall have an opportunity of giving 

1 II. xviii. 45. 2 II. xv. 598. 

3 II. ii. 305-330. 

Z 2 



340 JUVENTUS mundi. [chap. 

glory anew to her son, by advising him to accept the 
ransom 1 which is to be offered by Priam. 

The other principal particulars given us respecting 
Thetis are as follows. 

During the action of the Poem she habitually resides 
with c the old man her father/ in the depths. We may 
suppose that this was because she was now released from 
any direct maternal duties in the house of Peleus. 

Here was her nurse ; and was the special designer of 
the marriage 2 . Here again we observe the meeting of 
Hellenic and Pelasgic elements. The undisguised re- 
luctance of the bride 3 may have been due to her pre- 
vision of the time when Peleus her husband would be 
overtaken by old age; but I rather think it may 
have been inserted by Homer in order to separate 
the case of Thetis broadly from those of Demeter and 
Aphrodite. 

She has an union of strong human affections with 
the fainter attributes of deity. Besides what we have 
already seen, she hears from beneath the prayer of 
Achilles, but then he offers it from the shore, and 
looking seawards 4 . She also hears his wail over Pa- 
troclos ; but it was an awfully loud one J. She herself 
joined in the audible lament 6 . She was aware of his 
appointed destiny 7 , but was under the necessity of 
applying to him to know the cause of his grief. So 
at least she asserts, though her own son seems to 
contradict her 8 . She suggests to him to seek comfort 
in sensual indulgence 9 . In his sorrow, however, she 



1 11. 


xxiv. 107-111. 2 11. xxiv. 60. 


3 11. xviii. 434. 


4 11. 


i- 348-351. 5 11. xviii. 35. 6 11. 


xviii. 37, 71, et alibi. 


7 11. 


i. 416-418 ; xviii. 95. 8 11. : 
9 11. xxiv. 130. 


i. 363, 365; xviii. 63. 



VIII. J THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 341 

watches over him night and day, besides inspiring him 
with courage for the field 1 . And when summoned, to 
Olympos in the matter of Hector's ransom, she appears 
there in deep mourning 2 . 

Upon entering the divine Assembly, she is received 
with the utmost deference, Athene yielding her place 
by Zeus, which Thetis takes 3 . This may be a pro- 
ceeding of delicate courtesy, having reference either to 
her sorrowing state, or more probably to the honourable 
customs of hospitality. 

On repairing to Hephaistos to obtain the Arms, she 
dispatches her sisters to inform old Nereus of what had 
happened 4 . When the gift is ready, she herself, de- 
scending like a falcon from Olympos, carries the Arms 
to the tent of Achilles 5 . 

The point of the sea, at which she dwells with her 
father, is between Samothrace and Imbros 6 . 

She came once more to the camp on the yet more 
sorrowful occasion of the death of Achilles 7. She then 
appointed the great contest between Ajax and Odysseus 
for the arms of the departed hero 8 . She supplied the 
famous urn, to receive his ashes ; which was the work 
of Hephaistos, and the gift of Dionusos. She also sup- 
plied the prizes for the funeral games 9 , which she ob- 
tained from the other gods, more richly endowed, as is 
probable according to the idea of the Poems, than herself. 

The epithets applied to Thetis are generally con- 
nected with her marine extraction, and of these Argu- 
ropeza, the silver-footed, is the most characteristic j or 
else they relate to her good disposition. 

1 II. xxiv. 72 ; xix. 37. 2 II. xxiv. 93. 3 II. xxiv. 100. 

* II. xviii. 139-147. 5 II. xviii. 616; xix. 2. 6 II. xxiv. 78. 
7 Od. xxiv. 47, 55. 8 Od. xi. 556. 9 Od. xxiv. 85. 



342 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHi 



IP; 



She is plainly not an Olympian deity in the sense of 
belonging to the ordinary Assembly. Of this her 
reception as a guest in the Twenty-fourth Book appears 
to be a positive sign ; and it is in harmony with all 
that we can see of her origin. 

Most of the later tradition respecting Thetis appears 
to be but arbitrary comment and embellishment. The 
authentic data are few. She had a temple, according 
to Strabo, between Old and New Pharsalos, in Thessaly ; 
doubtless owing to traditions of local worship, which 
had grown out of the distinguished honours assigned to 
her in the Poems 1 . Pausanias mentions a case in 
which, during the Messenian wars, a priestess of Thetis, 
named Geo, was taken and found to have in her pos- 
session an ancient wooden statue of the deity. This 
appears to have been the only temple to her which 
existed south of Thessaly 2 ; but there was a tale of 
a statue of her, planted by Menelaos over against 
Cranae 3 , on his return from his wanderings. It is not 
improbable that, after the Troica, there may have been 
tendencies to establish this worship, and that they were 
afterwards effaced from the want of a sufficient basis 
for such a divinity. Hesiod adds nothing to the 
Homeric account 4 . 

I cannot help leaning to the belief that, whether she 
is or is not a transformation of Tethus, she is, in most 
of what we hear of her, a creation of Homer for the 
purposes of his work ; and that, as the Poet of Greece, 
engaged in building up her nationality and religion, he 
has employed her as a most effective instrument for 
signifying that union of ethnical and theogonic elements, 

1 Strabo, ix. p. 431. 2 Paus. iii. 14, 4. 3 Paus. xx. 2. 

4 Theog. 244, 1006. 



VIII.] THE DIVINITIES OF OLYMPOS. 343 

which he in part commemorated, and in part brought 
about. 

With reference to the etymology of her name, it is 
perhaps worthy of remark that the only office of media- 
tion at all resembling hers is ascribed to Tethus, who, 
with her husband Okeanos, gives shelter and nurture 
to Here 1 , at the great crisis when Zeus was thrusting 
his father Kronos down to the Underworld 2 . 

1 II. xiv. 201-204. 

2 It would be matter of great interest to know how far, apart 
from any theory, the names of the Hellenic divinities are really 
derivable from the Sanscrit : and in the recent work of M. Jacol- 
liot, La Bible dans I'lnde, a list of many of them is given with 
Sanscrit roots, in many cases seemingly appropriate. But for 
one ignorant like myself of that language, this etymology must 
rest upon authority: and the general propositions of M. Jacol- 
liot's work are not sufficiently restrained and circumspect at once 
to inspire confidence in his judgments. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Further Sketch and Moral Aspects of the 
Olympian System. 

I. Various Orders of Preternatural Beings. 

I have dwelt largely on the Olympian Deities. The 
goddess Thetis has received a separate supplemental 
notice, on account, not of her mythological rank but of 
her essential share in the machinery, both human and 
theogonic, of the Iliad. Also it is essential to give 
some attention to the deities or impersonations con- 
nected with Duty, Doom, and Justice. With respect to 
all other preternatural figures appearing in the Poems, 
it will nearly suffice to present their names according 
to the classification which has been already stated. 

i. The Nature-Powers : — 

Okeanos: the source of deities {Oe&v ylvecris). 

II. xiv. 201. 
Tethus: the mother of deities. II. xiv. 201. 

These two were married, but estranged. II. xiv. 206. 

It is probable that Homer intends by these expres- 
sions to represent Okeanos and Tethus as the general 
parents of the various dynasties of gods ; and it can 



THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 345 

only be from a supreme respect to Okeanos that, when 
all other Rivers are summoned to the Great Olympian 
Assembly, he alone is not called \ because he could not 
appear there in his proper place, as head and Sire of all. 
Gaia. In the Underworld. The word means 

Land, rather than Earth. 
Nereus. In the sea. Never expressly named ; 
but only called c the aged father of Thetis/ 
and signified in the patronymic of Nereides. 
Kronos and Rhea. In Tartaros. Welcker thinks 
that Kronos (Time) is a mythical reflection 
from the conception of Zeus, who alone has in 
Homer the title ofKronides. Rhea he takes, 
as kindred to Era 2 , to be an Earth-goddess of 
one of the old associated races of the Greek 
Peninsula. Rhea is clearly placed in associa- 
tion with Okeanos and Tethus, by her de- 
livering over Here to their care. 
Amphitrite, the moaning sea (dyaoroz/oj), is men- 
tioned in the Odyssey ; in a very faint personi- 
fication. In later mythology, she becomes a 
wife of Poseidon. The passages where she is 
named, as well as the fact that she is only 
named in this poem, well admit of our re- 
ferring her to the circle of Phcenician tra- 
ditions 3 . 
2. The Minor Nature-Powers : — 

The Rivers : of whom are specially named — 
Xanthos or Scamandros. II. xx. 74. 
Asopos. Od. xi. 260. 
Spercheios. II. xxiii. 144. 

1 II. xx. 4. 2 Welcker, i. 143; ii. 216. 

3 Od. iii. 91 ; v. 422 ; xii. 60, 97. 



346 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Alpheios. II. xi. 728. 
Enipeus. Od. xi. 238, 
Axios. II. xxi. 141, 157. 
The Nymphs — 

Daughters of Zeus. II. vi. 420. Od. 

vi. 105. 
The Mountain Nymphs. II. vi. 420. 
The Grove Nymphs. II. xxi. 8. 
The Fountain Nymphs. II. xiv. 144; 

xx. 384; xxi. 9. Od. xiii. 356. 
The Meadow Nymphs. II. xxi. 9. 
The Nymph Abarbaree. II. vi. 22. 
Worship of Nymphs. Od. xiv. 435. 
Their Altar. Od. xvii. 211. 
The Nymphs mentioned thus far are named 
as having been summoned to the Great 
Olympian Assembly. 

The Nymphs of the Sun, Lampetie and 
Phaethousa. Od. xii. 132. Their mother 
is Neaira. Od. xii. 133. 
The Nereids, sisters of Thetis, dwelling 
in the sea. II. xviii. 37. 
The Winds : never admitted to Olympos ; but 
worshipped; viz. 

Zephuros. II. xxiii. 195, 200, 208. 
Boreas. II. xx. 223; xxiii. 195, 208. 
(Notos and Euros are not mentioned as 
separate impersonations.) 
3. Mythological Personages of the Outer, or Phoeni- 
cian Sphere. 

Helios, father of Aietes and Kirke. Od. x. 138. 

Kirke. Od. x. 136. 

Calypso, daughter of Atlas. Od. i. 52. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 347 

Ino Leucothee. Od. v. 333. A deified mortal. 
Proteus. Od. iv. 385. Declared to belong to 

Egypt. 
Atlas, the Pillar-bearer, and sea explorer. Od. 

i. 52. 
Maias, mother of Hermes. Od. xiv. 435. 
Thoosa. Od. i. 71. 
Phorcus. Od. i. 72. c Ruler of the sea: 3 in 

relations with Poseidon through his daughter 

Thoosa. 
Aietes, brother of Kirke. Od. x. 137. 



Perse, mother of Kirke and Aietes. Od. x. 



I 39' 



Aiolos. Od. x. 2. A semi-deified mortal. 
The Sirens : two in number. Od. xii. 52. 

4. The Rebellious Powers are — 

Kronos (probably). II. xiv. 203. 

Titans (perhaps). II. xiy. 279. 

The Giants. Od. vii. 59^ 60. 

Tituos. Od. xi. 576. 

Otos and Ephialtes. Od. xi. 305 seqq. 
But it is not easy to distinguish in all cases between 
powers rebellious, and powers simply deposed or super- 
seded. 

Passages relating to the punishment of rebellious 
powers, according to the Sacred or Hebrew tradition, 
are to be found in Job xxvi. 5; Prov. ii. 18, xxi. 16; 
cf. Gen. vi. 4, 5; in 2 Pet. ii. 4, 5- Wisd. xiv. <5, 
Ecclus. xvi. 7j Baruch iii. 26, 28. 

5. Ministers of Doom. 

Ate. 
Erinues. 

Moira, Moirai, Aisa, Kataclothes. 
These will be mentioned severally. 



348 JUVENTUS MUNDI, [CHAP. 

6. Poetical Impersonations. 

The Muses, daughters of Zeus : their number is 

only mentioned by Homer in Od. xxiv. 60. 

The invocation is most commonly in the 

singular. They are, however, nine in all. 
The Fates (Keres, Cataclothes). 
The Prayers (with Ate) . 
Ossa, Rumour. II. ii. 93; Od. xxiv. 412. 
Deimos, Terror. II. iv. 440, ii. 37, xv. 119. 

Probably son of Ares. 
Phobos, Panic. Ibid. A son of Ares. II. xiii. 299. 
Kudoimos, Tumult. Attends upon Enno. II. 

v - 593- 
Eris, Discord. II. v. 740. See supra. Chap. VIII. 

Oneiros, Dream. II. ii. 6-54. 

Hupnos, Sleep. II. xiv. 23 1 . 

Thanatos, Death. IJ. xiv. 231, xvi. 454, 682. 

Alke, Might. Jl. v. 740. 

Ioke, Rout. II v. 740. 

Arpuiai : the Storm-winds. Od. i. 241 ; re- 
peated xiv. 37 r, xx. 77- cf. 63. Of these 
Podarge is named as the mother- who bears 
to Zephuros the two immortal horses of 
Achilles, Zanthos and Balios. 

II. The Erinues. 

There are three chief descriptions of preternatural 
force recognised in the Homeric Poems. 

1. The will and power of the Olympian deities. 

2. The binding efficacy of Destiny. 

3. The obligations of the moral order. 

The first of them may be described, from its mixed 



IX. J THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 349 

character of truth and fable, as the Theomythology of 
the Poet. 

The second is his Necessitarianism. 

The third is his Deontology. 

But none of these are scientifically set forth or 
viewed ; and no one of them has an exclusive sway. 

In the first, a personal will is everywhere apparent ; 
and though this will is largely used in sustaining moral 
ideas, yet with them are mixed mere propensities and 
partialities, and even passions and vices. 

In the second and third, personality and will are 
thrown into the background. As his first rests on 
c shall, 3 so the second is based on the idea we convey 
by c must ; ' but the third is founded on c ought/ 

The second, if absolute, is perhaps among the most 
immoral and degrading of all philosophical systems; 
but those, who have given it a logical assent, have 
seldom adopted it as the rule of life ; and in Homer it 
has only a very limited range. It is rarely held up to 
us apart from some reference either to the personal will 
of the gods, or to the moral order ; and it never appears 
as the single, ultimate, overruling force. 

The third corresponds with the second in its gene- 
rally, though not invariably, impersonal character ; and 
the ideas belonging to the two respectively are some- 
times mixed in the words juotpa, which leans however 
to the idea of force, and cuaa and 8atjot&>z>, which con- 
tains more of the moral element. There is also a 
relation between the idea of Zeus, and that of Fate, 
exhibited in the remarkable phrase Alos ataa, the fate 
of, that is, proceeding from, Zeus. 

But in the rear of this law of the great Ought, or the 
moral order of the Universe, there is a personal agency, 



350 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

which in Homer is principally charged with enforcing 
its observance; that namely of the 'Epivves. With the 
progress of time, and the growth of moral corruption, 
the function of these venerable ministers of Right 
comes more and more to be, not enforcing the observ- 
ance, or repairing the breach, but simply punishing the 
offender ; and they themselves gradually assume the 
power of Furies, dressed in every imaginable horror. 
The later pictures of them are coarse and vulgar, com- 
pared with the awful yet noble figures of the Erinues 
of Homer, in whom is really represented, more than in 
Zeus himself, the idea of an ultimate Divine Judgment, 
together with compensating and rectifying powers. 

The action of the Erinues is to a certain extent 
mixed with that of the subterranean or avenging gods. 
When the father of Phoenix prays the Erinues to make 
him childless, the imprecation is fulfilled by c the gods, 
and (or namely) the nether Zeus and the awful Per- 
sephone:' and again, when Althaia invokes these two 
deities for the punishment of Meleagros, it is the 
Eriniis who from Erebos hears, and accomplishes, the 
prayer 1 . The Erinues are invoked by Agamemnon to 
witness to his asseverated oath concerning Briseis, as 
punishers of the perjured ; together with Zeus, Gaia, 
and the Sun 2 . The Erinues of Epicaste haunt her 
son CEdipus 3 . In his father's house, Telemachos ap- 
prehends that, should he dismiss his mother, her Erinues 
will come upon him 4 : and Odysseus, when the Suitor 
Antinoos has hurled the stool at him, invokes upon 
him c if,' or, c for surely,' c there are such,' the gods and 
Erinues of the poor 5 . 

1 II. ix. 449-457 and 565-603. 2 II. xix. 258-260. 

3 Od. ii, 279. 4 Od. ii. 135. 5 Od. xvii. 475, 476. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 35 1 

The functions of the Erinues are not confined to 
mortals. They affect also the gods. When Ares is 
laid prostrate in the Theomachy, Athene tells him his 
fall is due to the Erinues of his mother Here, whose 
side he had abandoned 1 . And, when Iris finds it dif- 
ficult to induce Poseidon to obey the behest of Zeus 
by withdrawing from the field of battle, she reminds 
him that the Erinues are with the elder 2 . 

The horse Xanthos receives a voice from Here, to 
warn Achilles of his fate : when he has done it, the 
Erinues arrest his speech 3 . 

When Agamemnon has to confess his clttj or sin 
in the matter of Briseis, he says, c I however am not 
to blame, but Zeus, and Fate, and the Erlnus that 
stalks in cloud V 

When the daughters of Pandareos have received all 
manner of gifts by the agency of the gods, and Zeus 
is being asked to find them husbands, instead of this, 
the Harpuiai or Hurricanes, who are either storm-blasts 
or subordinate ministers of vengeance, carry them off, 
and deliver them to the Erinues to deal with 5 . 

Thus far, in eleven cases out of the twelve in which 
Homer introduces these remarkable personages, they 
evidently appear as the champions and avengers of 
the moral order, in all forms, and against all persons 
whatever. 

They are never subject to the order of any Deity. 
The gods indeed are subject to control, or even punish- 
ment, by them. Zeus is never mentioned in this 
relation : but their office expressly reaches to Poseidon. 
Their agency is wholly anterior to, and independent 

1 II. xxi. 410-414. 2 11. xv. 202. 3 II. xix. 418. 

* II. xix. 87. 5 Od. xx. 66-78. 



35% JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

of, all volition whatever. They represent Law in 
action. But, besides punishing offenders, they actually 
stop and repair infractions of the moral or settled 
constitution of the world, as in the case of the horse 
Xanthos. They therefore represent not only right as 
opposed to wrong, but order as opposed to disorder: 
and, in this respect, they supply a very characteristic 
product of the symmetrical mind of the Greeks. 

The Erinues of parents, of elders, of the poor, and the 
like, are the sanctions of those great relations, in which 
moral obligation has its roots for the mass of men. 

In the case of the offence of (Edipus, will was not 
concerned : yet it is enough for them that law was 
violated ; and they appear in order to avenge it. 

In the case of the orphan daughters of Pandareos, 
it is simply excess which they appear to resent. All 
personal gifts, even their food, were conveyed to these 
maidens by the direct agency of deities. This abnormal 
provision, lying far beyond, was therefore in derogation 
of, the established laws for the government of the world : 
it left no space for human volition, effort, or discipline. 
This is the probable ground for the remarkable inter- 
vention of the Erinues against the damsels. 

The twelfth and remaining case represents the close- 
sticking, or tenacious, Erinus 1 (baairXriTLs) as insinuat- 
ing an Ate or offence into the mind of Melampous. 
Neleus had made it a condition of obtaining the hand 
of his daughter Pero, that the Suitor should bring him 
certain oxen of Iphiclos. This Melampous undertook 
to do, on behalf not of himself but of a brother ; though 
it entailed a year's imprisonment, which as a Seer he 
must be supposed to have known beforehand. We 
1 Compare 'Post equitem sedet atra cura.' Hor. Od. 3. 1, 40. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 353 

have to ask, in what did the offence consist? Was 
it an imprudence or folly thus to expose himself? or 
was the theft an offence against the laws of good 
neighbourhood or guestship ? In either case we do not 
escape this difficulty, that it was suggested by the 
Erinus. This is a representation not easily brought 
into accordance with any of the other Homeric re- 
ferences to the Erinues: which, though severe beyond 
the limits of justice, nowhere else appear as the in- 
stigators of evil. It seems to be peculiarly strange, 
because of the habitual care of the Erinus to maintain 
the established order, and not merely to punish the 
breach of it. 

It is true that, in the Odyssey, Athene is said to 
restrain the Suitors from discontinuing their evil deeds. 
But these are men who had long persisted in a pro- 
fligate and cruel disregard of all the laws of duty 1 . 
No such consideration will apply to the case of 
Melampous. Agamemnon, indeed, blames the Erinus 
for his own fault: but this is a mere excuse. The 
whole legend of Melampous is given in a form some- 
what cramped j and, like other passages in the later 
books of the Odyssey, suggests that it had not been 
fully wrought out by the Poet. Possibly, but I cannot 
say more than possibly, this may account for the mode 
in which the Erinus is introduced. We may also 
remark that here only she is called by the name of 
goddess ; which appears rather inconsistent with her 
position. 

Whether we are to regard the Erinus as really 

capable of being a tempter or not, the conception 

deviates from the highest form of rectitude by ad- 

1 Od. xviii. 151, 346. 

a a 



354 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

ministering punishment, in the case of (Edipus, to an 
involuntary offence. But here the elements of good 
greatly preponderate ; and there is something noble as 
well as awful in these beings, watching with so much 
care over constituted laws, and maintaining or restoring 
the equilibrium of the moral world. It is by an im- 
mense declension that these sublime Erinues become 
the savage Furies of the Latin Hades 1 . 

The name of Erinus is traced etymologically by 
Professor Max Miiller to the Sanscrit Saranyo, a name 
of the Dawn 2 : which, as importing discovery by means 
of light, would connect it with the office we have been 
considering. 

III. Ate, the Temptress. 

The Ate of Homer, as a person, represents a Temp- 
tress, who insinuates into the mind error or crime, 
begun in folly, and ending in calamity. Among the 
later Greeks it is Calamity simply, with a shadow of 
Destiny hanging in the distance. 

The Homeric Ate means and wishes ill to mortals ; 
but seems to have no power to hurt them, except it 
be through channels wholly or partially opened to her 
by their own erring or bewildered volition. Even 
Deity is not exempt from her illusions: for, before the 
birth of Heracles 3 , she it is who leads Zeus to promise 
what will, through Here's craft, overturn his own most 
dearly cherished plans. For this excess of daring, Zeus 
seizes her by the hair, and hurls her from Olympos 
to Earth 4 , apparently taken to be her native seat. 

1 JEn.vi. 555, 571. 2 Lectures on Language, ii. 484, 516, 562. 
3 II. xix. 95 seqq. i II. xix. 126-133. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 355 



For she 1 is his eldest daughter; his daughters too 
are the Litai, or prayers, that lag behind her. She 
is vigorous and nimble, prowling about for mischief. 
They are limping and decrepit : they cannot see 
straight before them 2 . In this allegory, we have man 
ready and quick to err, slow to repent. We have 
also a living power of Evil extraneous to him, and ever 
soliciting him to his own loss and ruin. Here is a 
picture in substance much resembling the Serpent of 
the Book of Genesis, the Satan of Scripture, and the 
punishment he has undergone. 

The temptations of Ate are to acts, also called atai, 
variously shaded between folly and sheer crime. The 
most innocent ate of Homer is perhaps the sleep of 
Odysseus in Thrinakie, during which his crew consume 
the oxen of the Sun 3 . He may, indeed, be regarded 
as in some sort responsible for his comrades: yet he 
had bound them by oath 4 not to commit the acts. 

We cannot be surprised if occasionally we find moral 
government in Homer out of joint, as in the case lately 
observed, where the Erinus is said to send an Ate 5 . 
Agamemnon complains that his Ate was sent to him 
by Zeus, together with Destiny and Erinus 6 ; but this 
is an exhibition of a weak and self-excusing character, 
rather than a normal example of the thought current 
in that age. 

Besides the Ate of Zeus, of Agamemnon, and of 
Odysseus, we have in Homer the following chief 
examples : 

Of Dolon, II. x. 391. 

1 II. xix. 91. 2 II. ix. 499-514. 

3 Od. xii. 372. * Od. xii. 303. 

5 Od. xv. 234. 6 II. xix. 87. 
A a 2 



$$6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Of Melampous, Od. xv. 233. 

These are offences against prudence. 

Of Paris, II. vi. 356; xxiv. 28. 

Of Helen, Od. iv. 261 5 xxiii. 223. 

Of the Manslayer, II. xxiv. 480. 

Of the drunken Centaur Eurution, Od. xxi. 296-302. 
These are moral transgressions. 

The higher form of human wickedness, deliberate 
and self-conscious, is, as we shall see, not ate but 
atasthalie. 



IV. Fate or Doom. 

The words used in Homer to signify Fate, Doom, 
and Destiny, are Ker, also in the plural Keres; Kata- 
clothes ; Moira ; Aisa ; and Moros. 

Of these, Ker approaches most frequently to a distinct 
impersonation ; has the faintest trace of any moral 
element, distinct from the mere machinery of an iron 
system of decrees ; and is of the darkest colour, as it 
always implies doom or death, never a fated blessing. 
Ker again is the destiny of an individual • not of law 
governing the world. It is, however, on no occasion 
eluded or contravened. 

The Kataclothes or Spinners are only mentioned in 
Od. vii. 197. They are personal : and the epithet 
c weighty' or c oppressive 5 is attached to them. They 
partake of the character of the Keres. 

Neither of these touch the great questions, how far 
destiny overrules the human will, and how far it is 
separate from, or even superior to, the divine will. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM, 357 

The word Aisa means the destiny of a particular 
person 1 : or the moral law for the government of 
conduct 2 ; or that moral law as proceeding from Zeus or 
Providence personally, as the Dios aisa 3 , daimonos 
aisa : or lastly a separate power moving and ruling 
affairs 4 . In this last and gravest sense, Aisa is not very 
prominently used. Again, it is but rarely and faintly 
personified; it contains more of the moral element, 
more of ought than of must : though, when used to mean 
Death it is irresistible, because the law of death cannot 
be directly cancelled. Otherwise, it may be overcome. 
In II. xvi. 780, the Achaians gain the upperhand against 
the Trojans, in spite of Aisa. But this particular Aisa 
was no more than the decree of Zeus, which gave 
that one day of success to the fortunes of Troy. The 
dominant idea of Aisa generally is not blind com- 
mand, but an ordained law of right : a law without 
doubt very liable to be broken. 

Moira, like Aisa, means an allotted share: but it 
is less ethical, more contracted, and more sovereign 
and resistless. Moira deals with each man: but we 
scarcely hear of the Moira of a man. It may mean 
good fortune, and has this sense in opposition to am- 
morie 5 : it requires a darkening epithet to give it the 
adverse sense 6 . It is however often used for death. 
It may be the divine will embodied, as we have the 
Moira of the god, or the gods 7; but never of any 
named god, which seems to place it somewhat higher 
than Aisa. Nothing in Homer is actually done con- 



1 II. i. 416. 2 II. iii. 59. 3 II. xvii. 321. 

* II. xx. 127 ; xvi. 441. 5 Od. xx. 76. 6 II. xii. 116. 

7 Od. iii. 269; xxii. 413. 



358 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP, 

trary to Moira: but such things seem to be regarded 
as not beyond the bounds of possibility \ 

It is not however incapable of receiving the moral 
element, To speak generally, morsimos is destined, 
aisimos is right. But when Antinoos is killed;, he is 
killed according to Moira 2 , that is rightly: and the 
term cata moiran connects it with the moral order, in 
the sense of propriety 3 , 

In the order of action, then, Moira is above Aisa; 
in the order of law,, below it. 

Moros in Homer is never personified. Referred 
to an individual it seems to mean his death: and 
etymologically it corresponds with the Latin mors. It 
is never associated with the deity. But it is like Aisa 
in receiving the sense of the moral law. And here it 
corresponds with the Latin mos^ moris. For mortals 
bring calamity on themselves in defiance of moros, 
and in similar defiance Aigisthos commits his crimes 4 . 
This can hardly mean that he was too strong for 
Destiny ; but he was too strong for Right. 

In none of these forms does Destiny ever fight with 
the gods ; or, unless it be in the shape of Death, defy 
them. The later Greek mind elaborated the idea of 
a Fate apart from, and higher than, the gods 5 . But, in 
Homer, not even the human will is controlled in such 
a manner as to suggest or sustain the Necessitarian 
theory. Indeed we find the gods helping Destiny against 
man : as when, in the Second Iliad 8 , the Greeks would, 
against Moros, have returned to their country after the 

1 II. xx. 335. 2 Od. xxii. 54. s II. x. 169, 

4 Od. i. 34, 35. 

5 iEsch. Ag. 993 ; Herod, i. 91 ; Philem. Fragm. 86, 

6 Od. i. 155. 



IX 



] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 359 



rush from the Assembly, had not Here urged Athene 
to stay the torrent of home-sick emotion : and Apollo 
entered Troy, lest the Greeks should take it, against 
Moros, on the day of the fall of Hector \ Nor is the 
Fate of Homer absolutely blind : on the contrary it 
shows rather a tendency at times to grow into a sort 
of rival Providence, as in c The Fates have ordained 
for man a hardy mind 2 .' 

And when, in order to obtain a comprehensive view 
of the field of human action, we turn to the general 
plan of the two Poems, we find that in each case they 
work, not according to the impulsion of a blind and 
occult force, but rationally, towards the fulfilment of 
a divine or Olympian decree, announced at the outset, 
and steadily pursued to the end 3 . 



V. Animal Worship. 

Although Animal worship has played so considerable 
a part in the religions of the East, the traces of it in 
Homer are few, and, with one exception, they are 
also faint. 

That exception is the extraordinary sanctity attach- 
ing, in the Twelfth Odyssey, to the Oxen of the Sun, 
which I have treated as belonging to the Phoenician 
system, and as foreign to the Olympian religion \ 

Other traces seem to be rather dubiously discoverable, 
as follows : 

1 II. xxi. 517. 2 II. xxiv. 49. 

3 II. i. 5 ; iv. 62-64. Od. i. 76-79. 
* See supra, Helios, Chap. VIII. 



* 



360 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

(a) The introduction of the immortal horses, Xanthos 
and Balios ; the gift of speech, conferred for the mo- 
ment by Here on Xanthos ; and, what is of more 
weight, the gift of prevision, which enabled him to 
foretell his master's death. That gift he did not derive 
from the goddess. But, when he had thus spoken, 
the Erinus interfered to arrest this violation of the 
natural order 1 . 

(b) The assumption by deities of the forms of birds : 
viz: — 

By Athene, II. vii. 59; Od. i. 320, iii. 372, xxii. 
240. 
Apollo, II. vii. 59. 
Hupnos, II. xiv. 290. 
Ino Leucothee (Phoenician), Od. v. ^^^. 

(c) The horse in Homer generally has not only a 
poetical grandeur, but a near relation to deity, which 
I am unable sufficiently to explain : but which, it seems 
possible, may be the reflection or analogue of the place 
assigned to the ox in the East. Several circumstances, 
and among them the practice of describing a cham- 
paign country as one suited to feeding the horse 2 , 
combine to show how completely, for the Greek, this 
noble creature stood at the head of the animal 
creation. 

Some have pointed to qualities belonging to the 
brute creation as the possible groundwork of the extra- 
ordinary system of religion, which regarded animals 
as fit objects of worship: the unity and tranquillity 
of animal life, which makes it, as it were, a colourless 
medium for an inward spirit to inhabit : and the 

1 II. xix. 404-418. 

2 U. ii. 287, and in fourteen other places. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 36 1 

singular instincts by which it appears in a manner 
to apprehend the future \ 

For my own part, I am not able, even after reading 
the argument of the learned and able Mr. Davison 2 , 
to escape from the belief that the hypothesis of a divine 
command, given before the races recorded in Scripture 
were multiplied and dispersed, affords by far the most 
rational and satisfactory explanation of the wide ex- 
tension of the practice of animal sacrifice, and of its 
remarkable uniformity as between races such as the 
Hebrews and the Hellenes, who had no communication 
together, and little indeed of anything in common. 
At the same time, it is an hypothesis only, and has 
not been demonstrated. 

But if mankind thus offered certain animals to their 
gods, under what they esteemed a divine authority, it 
is not difficult to perceive the chain of association by 
which those animals might themselves, in process of 
time, very easily be taken for symbols of the godhead, 
and might again, from being mere symbols, grow to 
be esteemed the real shrines of its glory, and thus to 
attract the worship which is its due. 



VI. On the Modes of Approximation between the Divine and 
the Human Nature. 

The anthropomorphic principle of the Greek religion 
found for itself, in a spontaneous manner, several dis- 
tinct forms or channels of development, for the closer 
association of the races of gods and men. 

1 Dollinger, Heid. u. Jud. vi. 130, p. 424. 

2 Inquiry into the Origin and Intent of Primitive Sacrifice. 
London, 1825. 



362 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

The deification of heroes and benefactors after death 
appears before us in Homer as begun, yet, at least 
in the Olympian mythology, as incomplete. No per- 
son, avowedly of human origin, has yet been advanced 
to the rank of deity with the full consequences both 
of an abode in heaven, and a worship on earth. 

Yet the consummation of the process is imminent. 
All the materials are prepared ; and all the steps taken, 
except the final one which combines them into a con- 
sistent whole. 

The elements of what was soon to be a system are 
found in Homer principally as follows : — 

1. The ascription of human forms, manners, affec- 
tions, passions, and other qualities, to the gods in 
general, lying at the root of the Homeric mythology 
as an anthropomorphic system, firmly lays the ground 
for further assimilation and intercommunion of the 
two orders of being. 

2. Divine beauty, strength, influence, and intellect, 
are ascribed freely in a long list of epithets and phrases, 
to the mortals most eminent for these properties : and 
even the epithet Odos, meaning simply c divine,' is 
attached, in the two grand cases of the Protagonists 
Achilles and Odysseus, to the living personages of the 
Poems, and to a larger number of the most eminent 
among the dead. This second head of preparation is 
as it were the counterpart of the first. 

3. Birth from a divine progenitor, and even from 
a divine father, is ascribed to many personages who 
are active in the Poems, as well as to many who were 
dead. 

4. Passion for beautiful or distinguished men is 
freely ascribed to goddesses, in a number of instances. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. $6$ 

Among these were some, especially Aphrodite and 
Demeter, who were already in part, and whom at a 
later date we find fully and unequivocally, adopted into 
the Hellenic religion. But it is remarkable that such 
passion is in no case throughout the Poems ascribed 
to any of those goddesses who were either the most 
elevated or else the most national : Here, Athene, 
Leto, Artemis. A higher and purer idea of woman was 
entertained among the Achaians, and reflected in their 
religion, than in the elemental or the oriental systems. 

5. More closely to the purpose than anything that 
has yet been stated, are the instances of Ganymede 
and Cleitos, translated to heaven and the society of 
the Immortals for their beauty 1 : of Tithonos, taken 
up to be the husband of Eos or the morning ; possibly 
of Marpessa, whom Apollo c snatched up ' 2 : and of Ino 
Leucothee 3 , who locally, that is, in the great sea region, 
has from being a mortal risen to the honours and 
character of deity. Aiolos, too, may be considered as 
nearly approaching to the character of a deified Per- 
sonage 4 . 

These, indeed., are all foreign, or extra-Hellenic, 
traditions. But of Hellenes, we have Castor, and 
Poludeukes or Pollux, who, even while on alternate days 
alive though not among men, and still in the lower 
regions, yet have by gift of Zeus had divine honours 
allotted to them 5 : and more still, we have Herakles 6 , 
who, while his Wraith is in the Shades, himself dwells 
among the gods, and has Hebe, who is apparently a 
goddess proper, assigned to him for his mate. 

1 II. xx. 233. Od. xv. 250. 2 II. ix. 564. 

3 Od. v, 333-335^ * Od. x, 1. 

5 Od. xi. 298-^304, 6 Od. xi. 601. 



364 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

6. We have also the case of Dionusos, whom, as 
having been born of a woman, we must apparently take 
to have been at the outset a mortal, but who had, as 
is pretty clear, in the time of Homer already become 
an Olympian god. 

7. Asclepios underwent a subsequent deification ; but 
in Homer he is a mortal only, for his sons, Podalirios 
and Machaon, bear the title of Asclepiad 1 , and no 
mortal in Homer ever derives a patronymic from a god. 

8. To whatever inferences the case of Dionusos may 
lead, there is no other in which we find a trace or sug- 
gestion of worship in its proper sense, as paid to any 
deceased or translated hero. Yet there are two instances 
of what may be called initial worship, which must not be 
overlooked. Achilles, besides the fat of oxen and sheep, 
casts four horses, two dogs, and twelve Trojan youths, 
upon the funeral pyre of Patroclos 2 . This is, however, 
I think, to be interpreted purely as a gratification to 
the departed spirit. In the Eleventh Odyssey we 
advance a step further, though some may think the 
Oriental character of the scenery of the Poem in this 
part ought to be taken into account. Odysseus, by 
express order from Kirke, besides making a libation, 
sacrifices a ram and a sheep on the spot, with invoca- 
tion to the gods, of whom Ai'des and Persephone are 
named ; and permits the dead successively to drink the 
blood, that they may tell him what he wants to know 3 . 
Here we see, dominant and unmixed, that idea of actual 
enjoyment by the objects of the sacrifice, which in the 
case of ordinary offerings to the gods is combined with 
other ideas more proper to the notion of worship. But 

1 II. iv. 204. 2 II. xxiii. 171-176. 

3 Od. xi. 35, 44-47. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. $6$ 

besides this, Odysseus is also enjoined to promise, and 
he promises accordingly, that, on his return to Ithaca, 
he will offer (and here the sacrificial words peCeiv and 
Upevetv are employed) a black sheep to Teiresias, and 
a cow that has never calved to the dead in general 1 . 
This vow seems to come within a step, at least, of the 
full idea of worship. We do not hear of its fulfilment 
on his return home: but this may be because we are 
not carried by the Poem to a perfect settlement of the 
difficulties which he finds awaiting him. Prayers (evxal 
and XltclI) are here expressly mentioned as used in the 
propitiation of the dead. But these are the entire 
mass of dead, not selected spirits of the great or 
brave. 

One marked, and yet rather obscure, form of the con- 
nection between the gods and the human race in Homer 
is that of divine filiation. It is with much diffidence that 
I offer any explanation of this subject. A very large 
number of cases are recorded by the Poet, in which the 
parentage of a god is expressly assigned to some human 
house or hero. In some instances it arises by infer- 
ence ; as when he calls Bellerophou, the son of Sisuphos, 
descended from the god (deov yovos 2 ), which can only 
mean, as Sisuphos was descended from Aiolos, that Aiolos 
was the offspring of a god. So, again, in the Legend 
of Nestor 3 , we are told that the young heroes of the 
line of Actor were saved from death by their ancestor 
Poseidon. The Iliad enables us to trace this line up to 
Azeus 4 , who must either have been a reputed son of 
the god, or may more probably have been an Aiolid, 
and thus descended from him, like the heads of so many 

1 Od. xi. 29. 2 II. vi. 19T. 

3 II. xi. 751. * II. ii. 513, 621. 



$66 JUVENTUS MUNDI, [CHAP. 

other great houses. Amphimachos, another Actorid, is 
slain in the Thirteenth Iliad: whereupon Poseidon is 
exceedingly vexed at heart for his vlvvbs or de- 
scendant 1 . 

To examine more thoroughly into this matter, let us 
take first for consideration the case of the great Ancient 
Houses, represented by their chiefs in and before the 
Trojan war. We find expressly assigned to Zeus the 
stocks of 

1. Perseus, 4. Heracles, 

2. Minos, 5. Minos, 

3. Aiacos, 6. Dardanos. 
And to Poseidon those of 

1. xActor (probably through Aiolos), 

2. Pelias, 

3. Neleus, 

4. Bellerophon, through Aiolos, 

5. Cretheus, (and Eumelos,) through Aiolos. 
Again it appears, upon examination, that Homer very 
commonly characterises by the epithet ajAviAuv persons 
of recognised divine descent. This epithet he gives to 
members of the families of 

1. The Pelopids, 

2. Odysseus, 

3. Telamon. 

4. Portheus (ancestor of Meleager and of Tudeus), 

5. Salmoneus and Augeias (through Aiolos,) with a 

very few others of less distinction. 

But the question arises, why is Homer so reserved, 

in many of these cases, with respect to the immediate 

connection between the first ancestor and the divine 

stock ? The case, where we should have expected it to 

1 II. xiii. 206. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 367 

be most clearly declared, is that of the great sovereign 
house of Agamemnon. But not a word is said by him 
expressly on the subject of the birth of the Pelopids; 
and the sceptre comes first into the hands of Pelops \ 
whereas tradition names Tantalos as' the first ancestor, 
and this Homer in no way contradicts. In the case of 
Dardanos, on the contrary, which is the counterpart to 
that of the Pelopids, the line is traced straight up to 
Zeus 2 . 

The natural explanation seems to be that, here as in 
so many other cases, Homer's functions as Chronicler 
were circumscribed by his feelings of nationality ; and 
that he acted on his usual rule of never knowingly re- 
ferring, or providing means to refer, anything Hellenic 
to a source admittedly foreign. Therefore, where the 
oldest recognised ancestor is an undoubted Greek, as 
in the case of Aiacos or Heracles, he gives the divine 
parentage; but where the line ran up to some one, 
who had not been completely or adequately Hellenised, 
there no distinct declaration is given, and we are left to 
form a judgment for ourselves, from slighter indica- 
tions, or from the fact that there is a general repre- 
sentation of the Kings and Chiefs of the heroic age as 
heaven-descended. In the case of Dardanos, there 
could be no corresponding motive for reticence. 

It will be observed, that all the very ancient houses 
in Homer, say those of from four to seven generations 
back, as well as the most distinguished modern ones, 
like those of Aiacos and Heracles, are referred either 
to Zeus, the supreme god of the Pelasgians and Hel- 
lenes; or to Poseidon, who appears to have been the 
supreme god according to the conception of the Phce- 
1 II. ii. 104. 2 II. xx. 215. 



368 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

nician immigrants. So far, then, as these cases are 
concerned, it seems needless to travel far in search of an 
explanatory hypothesis. In fact, if there was a tradi- 
tion, such as we find from the Scriptures to have pre- 
vailed among the Hebrews, and by which man in his 
first inception was viewed as standing in the relation 
of sonship to the Almighty, it is in accordance with 
all likelihood that, in process of time, this illustrious 
extraction should come in popular estimation to be 
confined to chiefs or ruling men. 

This explanation is however principally available for 
the class of Kings and Princes, who are called Zeus- 
born and Zeus-nurtured • and for those individual 
cases, which are of the greatest antiquity, and where 
no name of a mother is preserved. When we find a 
maternal name, a new element of difficulty is intro- 
duced. This difficulty may be deemed secondary in 
cases like those of Minos and Perseus ; because there 
the mother may be nothing more than an indication, 
supplied by tradition, of the national extraction of the 
son. The mother of Minos is simply c the daughter of 
an illustrious Phoenician,' and Danae has her counter- 
part in a local Phoenician name. But what are we to 
say of Alcmene, the mother of Heracles 1 ? of Lao- 
damia, the mother of Sarpedon 2 ? of Astuoche, the 
mother of Ascalaphos and Ialmenos 3 ? of Polumele 4 , 
the mother of Eudoros? perhaps also, of Turo, the 
mother of Pelias and Neleus 5 ? All these are women, 
having a place and an individuality as well defined as 
any other pre-Homeric women of the Poems. 

1 II. xix. 98. 2 II. vi. 198. 

3 II. ii. 513. 4 II. xvi. 180. 

5 Od. xi. 235, 254. 



V 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 369 

The explanation commonly given of these cases has 
been that they were cases of mere bastardy, covered 
with the illustrious names of deity. May it not how- 
ever be said that, if this be true, then nowhere did 
those connected with the birth of illegitimate children 
take so amazingly high a flight as among the Greeks • 
since, not content with equality, they gave them a 
higher title, by extraction, than the lawful offspring of 
the family themselves enjoyed ? Of bastardy, as com- 
monly understood, we have plenty of examples in the 
Homeric poems. Sometimes, as in the case of Eudoros, 
a person born out of wedlock was reared upon the same 
footing as a legitimate child. But when this is done, 
it is always mentioned as a thing worthy of note, evi- 
dently because more or less exceptional. 

I cannot help thinking that these singular cases of 
persons who had a known mother, and who supplied 
the want of a known father by claiming the parentage 
of a god, were not cases of common bastardy, but that 
they are rather to be explained by reference to the an- 
cient customs of what may be called marriage by violent 
abduction, or violation without dishonour, practised in 
ancient times by the men of one tribe upon the daugh- 
ters of another 1 . Of the traces of this custom, ancient 
history is full ; and even modern manners, in certain 
cases, aye at our very doors, visibly retain them. It 
seems to me that where, in the incidents of a tribal 
raid, some noble maid or even some matron of high 
birth fell a victim to the lust of an invader, it was 
agreeable to likelihood, as well as to social justice, that 
a clear line should be drawn between such cases and 
cases of dishonour willingly or corruptly incurred ; and 

1 See Maclellan on Primitive Marriage, Edinb. 1865. 
Bb 



370 juventus mundi. [chap, 

that either the involuntary mother at the time of the 
birth, or her offspring as he grew up, and went among 
his fellows without having like them a father to point 
to and to lean on, might exceptionally, and under 
favouring circumstances, have contrived to imitate for 
themselves the old tradition of the descent of kings 
from gods. The choice of the deity might in such cases 
be influenced by the particular worship in vogue among 
the aggressive tribe. 

The correlative cases, of legendary births due to the 
passion of goddesses for men, may perhaps admit of a 
similar explanation. The probable difference in the 
facts being, that these would be instances where the 
mother disappeared, and the child remained in the pos- 
session of the father. This remark may possibly apply to 
iEneas, son of Aphrodite ; to Aisepos and Pedasos, sons 
of the Naiad Nymph Abarbaree ; to Satnios, the son of 
another Naiad ; and to Iphition, the son of a third \ 

The birth of Achilles from Thetis will not fall into 
either of these categories* since it is represented as 
having taken place in regular wedlock. My conjecture 
respecting this birth is, that it may possibly be a pure 
invention, due to Homer himself, though perhaps sug- 
gested by the legends current in his day, respecting the 
attachments contracted by goddesses to mortal men. 
Such a fiction would be comparatively easy in the case 
of one who, like Peleus, was a reputed immigrant into 
the country which he ruled. 

I sum up then by observing that we find, over and 
above the use of language properly figurative, four main 
channels of approach for the human nature to the 
divine, 

1 II. ii. 821 ; vi. 21 ; xiv. 444 ; xx. 384. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 37 1 

1. Translation. 

2. Mixed Composition. 

3. Affiliation. 

4. Deification. 

And affiliation again, if I am right, appears in at least 
four shapes, 

(a) The ascription of a Divine birth or nurture to 

Kings and Princes as a class. 

(b) The ascription of a particular god as ancestor to 

a sovereign house. This god is always either 
Zeus or Poseidon. 

(c) More recent births from a divine father. 

(d) Births of men from a goddess ; few, and all recent. 



VII. The Homeric View of the Future State. 

The picture of the future state of man in Homer is emi- 
nently truthful as a representation of a creed which had 
probably fallen into dilapidation, and of the feelings 
which clustered about it j and it is perhaps unrivalled in 
the perfectly natural, but penetrating force, with which it 
conveys the effect of dreariness and gloom. It does not 
appear to be in all respects coherent and symmetrical ; 
and, while nothing betokens that this defect is owing to 
the diversity of the sources from which the traditions 
are drawn, it is such as might be due to the waste 
wrought by time and change on a belief which had at 
an earlier date been self-consistent. 

The future life, however, is in Homer used with 
solemnity and force as a sanction of the moral laws, 
especially in so far as the crime of perjury is concerned 1 . 

1 II. iii. 297 ; xix. 259. 
B b 2 



372 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

The Erinues dwell in the Underworld, and punish per- 
jurors. As the Erinues are invoked with reference to 
other offences 1 , we may therefore presume them also 
to have been punishable in the Underworld. 

The world to come is exhibited to us by Homer in 
three divisions. 

First, there is the Elysian plain, apparently under the 
government of Rhadamanthus, to which Menelaos will 
be conducted, or rather perhaps translated, in order to 
die there ; not for his virtues, however, but because he 
is the husband of Helen, and so the son-in-law of Zeus. 
The main characteristic of this abode seems to be easy 
and abundant subsistence with an atmosphere free from 
the violence of winter, and from rain and snow. 
Okeanos freshens it with Zephyrs ; it is therefore appa- 
rently on the western border of the world 2 . Mr. Max 
Miiller conjectures that Elysium (ijXvdov) may be a name 
simply expressing the future 3 . The whole conception, 
however, may be deemed more or less ambiguous, inas- 
much as the Elysian state is antecedent to death. 

2. Next comes the Underworld proper, the general 
receptacle of human spirits. It nowhere receives a 
territorial name in Homer, but is called the abode of 
Ai'des, or of Ai'des and Persephone. Its character is 
chill, drear, and dark ; the very gods abhor it 4 . Better 
to serve for hire even a needy master, says the Shade of 
Achilles, than to be lord over all the Dead 5 . It reaches, 
however, under the crust of the earth ; for, in the Theo- 
machy, A'idoneus dreads lest the earthquake of Poseidon 
should lay open his domain to gods and men 6 . 

1 See Erinues, sect. iii. supra. 2 Od. iv. 561-569. 

3 Lectures on Language, ii. 562, n. 

4 II. xx. 65. 5 Od. xi. 489. 6 II. xx. 1. Comp. Od. xi. 302. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 373 

Minos administers justice among the dead, as a king 
would on earth. But they are in general under no penal 
infliction. Three cases only are mentioned as cases of 
suffering : those of Tituos, Tantalos, and Sisuphos 1 . 
The offence is only named in the case of Tituos ; it 
was violence offered to the goddess Leto. Heracles 
suffers a strange discerption of individuality- for his 
eidolon or Shade moves and speaks here, while c he 
himself is at the banquets of the immortals 2 .' Again, 
Castor and Pollux are here, and are alive on alternate 
days, while they enjoy on earth the honours of deities 3 . 
Here, then, somewhat conflicting conditions appear to 
be combined. 

Within the dreary region seems to be a palace, which 
is in a more special sense the residence of its rulers 4 . 

The access to the Underworld is in the far East, by 
the Ocean River, at a full day's sail from the Euxine, 
in the country of the cloud-wrapt Kimmerioi 5 . From 
this point the way lies, for an indefinite distance, up 
the Stream ; to a point where the beach is narrow, and 
where Persephone is worshipped in her groves of poplar 
and of willow 6 . 

3. There is also the region of Tartaros, as far below 
that of Aides, as Ai'des is below the earth. Here 
dwell Iapetos and Kronos, far from the solar ray 7 . 
Kronos has a band of gods around him, who have in 
another place the epithet of sub-Tartarean; and the 
name of Titans 8 . It does not appear whether these 
are at all identified with the deposed dynasty of the 

1 Od. xi. 576, 582, 593. 2 Od. xi. 601-627. 

3 Od. xi. 300-304. 4 Od. xi. 627, 635, 

5 Od. xi. 9-14. See Chap. XIII. sect. 3. 6 Od. x. 506-512. 

7 II. viii. 16, 479. 8 II. xiv. 274, 279, 



374 yu vent us munbi. [chap. 

Nature Powers, whose dwelling is in the Underworld 1 ° y 
and with whom the human Dead had communication, 
for Achilles charges the Shade of Patroclos with a com- 
mission to the River Spercheios 2 . 

The line, therefore, between the realm of Aides and 
the dark Tartaros is obscurely drawn ; but in general 
we may say that, while the former was for men, the 
latter was for deposed or condemned Immortals. We 
hear of the offences of Eurumedon and the Giants with 
their ruler 3 ; and, though their place is not named, we 
may presume them, as well as Otos and Ephialtes, to 
be in Tartaros, in addition to the deities already 
named 4 . Hither it is that Zeus threatens to hurl 
down refractory divinities of the Olympian Court 5 . 

This threefold division of the unseen world is in 
some kind of correspondence with the Christian, and 
with what may have been the patriarchal, tradition ; as 
is the retributive character of the future state, however 
imperfectly developed, and the continuance there of the 
habits and propensities acquired on earth. 



VIII. The Olympian System in its Results. 

The history of the race of Adam before the Advent 
is the history of a long and varied but incessant pre- 
paration for the Advent. It is commonly perceived 
that Greece contributed a language and an intellectual 
discipline, Rome a political organisation, to the appa- 
ratus which was put in readiness to assist the propaga- 

1 II. iii. 278. 2 II. xxiii. 144-153. 

s Od. vii. 60. * Od. xi. 318. II. v. 385, 407, 

5 II. v. 897, 898 j viii. 10; xvii, 401-406. 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 3J5 

tion of the Gospel ; and that each of these, in its kind, 
was the most perfect that the world had produced. I 
have endeavoured elsewhere to show with some fulness 
what was the place of Greece in the Providential order 
of the world 1 ; and likewise what was the relation of 
Homer to the Greeks, and to their part of the Divine 
plan, as compared with the relation of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures to the chosen people of God 2 . I cannot now enter 
on that field at large • yet neither can I part without 
a word from the subject of the Olympian religion. 

In the works of Homer, this design is projected with 
such extraordinary grandeur, that the representation of 
it, altogether apart from the general merits of the 
Poems, deserves to be considered as one of the topmost 
achievements of the human mind. Yet its character, 
as it was first and best set forth in its entirety from 
the brain of the finisher and the maker, is not more 
wonderful than its subsequent influence and duration 
in actual life. For, during twelve or fourteen hundred 
years, it was the religion of the most thoughtful, the 
most fruitful, the most energetic portions of the human 
family. It yielded to Christianity alone ; and to the 
Church it yielded with reluctance, summoning up 
strength in its extreme old age, and only giving way 
after an intellectual as well as a civil battle, obstinately 
fought, and lasting for generations. For the greater 
part of a century after, the fall of Constantinople, in 
the chief centres of a Christian civilisation in many 
respects degenerated, and an ecclesiastical power too 
little faithful to its trust, Greek letters and Greek 
thought once again asserted their strength over the 

1 Address to the University of Edinburgh, 1865. 

2 Studies on Homer, vol. ii. Olympos, sect. x. 



376 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

most cultivated minds of Italy, in a manner which testi- 
fied to the force, and to the magic charm, with which 
they were imperishably endowed. Even within what 
may be called our own time, the Olympian religion has 
exercised a fascination altogether extraordinary over the 
mind of Goethe, who must be regarded as standing in 
the very first rank of the great minds of the latest 
centuries. 

The Olympian religion, however, owes perhaps as 
large a share of its triumphs to its depraved accommoda- 
tions, as to its excellences. Yet an instrument so 
durable, potent, and elastic, must certainly have had 
a purpose to serve. Let us consider for a moment 
what it may have been. 

We have seen how closely, and in how many ways, 
it bound humanity and deity together. As regarded 
matter of duty and virtue, not to speak of that highest 
form of virtue which is called holiness, this union was 
effected mainly by lowering the divine element. But 
as regarded all other functions of our nature, outside 
the domain of the life to god-ward, all those functions 
which are summed up in what Saint Paul calls the 
flesh and the mind, the psychic and the bodily life, 
the tendency of the system was to exalt the human 
element, by proposing a model of beauty, strength, and 
wisdom, in all their combinations, so elevated, that the 
effort to attain them required a continual upward 
strain. It made divinity attainable; and thus it effect- 
ually directed the thought and aim of man 

1 Along the line of limitless desires.' 

Such a scheme of religion, though failing grossly in 
the government of the passions, and in upholding the 



V 



IX.] THE OLYMPIAN SYSTEM. 377 

standard of moral duties, tended powerfully to produce 
a lofty self-respect, and a large, free, and varied con- 
ception of humanity. It incorporated itself in schemes 
of notable discipline for mind and body, indeed of a 
lifelong education ; and these habits of mind and action 
had their marked results (to omit many other great- 
nesses) in a philosophy, literature, and art, which remain 
to this day unrivalled or unsurpassed. 

The sacred fire, indeed, that was to touch the mind 
and heart of man from above, was in preparation else- 
where. Within the shelter of the hills that stand about 
Jerusalem, the great Archetype of the spiritual excel- 
lence and purification of man was to be produced and 
matured. But a body, as it were, was to be made ready 
for this angelic soul. And as when some splendid edi- 
fice is to be reared, its diversified materials are brought 
from this quarter and from that, according as nature 
and man favour their production, so did the wisdom of 
God, with slow but ever sure device, cause to ripen 
amidst the several races best adapted for the work, the 
several component parts of the noble fabric of a Chris- 
tian manhood and a Christian civilisation. c The kings 
of Tharsis and of the isles shall give presents: the 
kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts V Every 
worker was, with or without his knowledge and his will, 
to contribute to the work. And among them an appro- 
priate part was thus assigned both to the Greek people, 
and to what I have termed the Olympian religion. 

1 Ps. Ixxii. io. 






CHAPTER X. 



Ethics of the Heroic Age. 



Section I. 



In general outline, we may thus sum up the moral 
character of the Homeric Greeks, favourably regarded. 

A high-spirited, energetic, adventurous, and daring 
people, they show themselves prone to acts of hasty 
violence j and their splendid courage occasionally even 
degenerates, under the influence of strong passion, into 
ferocity, while their acuteness and sagacity sometimes, 
though more rarely, take a decided tinge of cunning. 
Yet they are neither selfish, cruel, nor implacable. 
At the same time, self-command is scarcely less con- 
spicuous among them than strong, and deep, and quick 
emotion. They are, in the main, a people of warm 
affections and high honour, commonly tender, never 
morbid : they respect the weak and the helpless ; they 
hold authority in reverence. Domestic purity, too, is 
cherished and esteemed among them more than else- 
where; and they have not yet fallen into the lower 
depths of sensual excess. 






ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 379 

The Greek thanks the gods in his prosperity; 
witness the case of Laertes. It is perhaps less remark- 
able that in his adversity he appeals to them for aid. 
If, again, he is discontented, he complains of them"; 
for he harbours no concealed dissatisfaction. Ready 
enough to take from those who have, he is at least 
as ready to give to those who need. He represents 
to the life the sentiment which another great master 
of manners has given to his Duke of Argyle, in the 
c Heart of Mid Lothian' : c It is our Highland privi- 
lege to take from all what we want, and to give to 
all what they want 1 . 5 Distinctions of class are recog- 
nised, but they are mild and genial; there is no 
arrogance on the one side, nor any servility on the 
other. Reverence is paid to those in authority; and 
yet the Greek thinks in the spirit, and moves in 
the sphere, of habitual freedom. Over and above his 
warmth and tenacity in domestic affections, he prizes 
highly those other special relations between man and 
man, which mitigate and restrain the law of force in 
societies as yet imperfectly organized. He thoroughly 
admires the intelligence displayed in stratagem, whether 
among the resources of self-defence, or by way of jest 
upon a friend, or for the hurt or ruin of an enemy ; but 
life in disguise he cannot away with, and holds it a 
prime article in his creed that the tongue should 
habitually represent the man 2 . 

From these facts, if taken alone, we might be tempted 
to suppose, that the Greeks of the Homeric age were an 
inhuman and savage race, who did not appreciate the 
value of human life. But this is not so. They are not 
a cruel people. There is no wanton infliction of pain 

1 Scott's Novels and Tales, 8vo. ed., x. 238. 3 II. ix.312. 



380 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

throughout the whole operations of the Iliad ; no delight 
in the sufferings of others, no aggravation of them 
through vindictive passion. The only needless wounds 
given, are wounds inflicted on the dead body of Hector 1 . 
It seems to be not a disregard of human life, but an 
excess of regard for courage, which led them to under- 
value the miseries incident to violence. 

The character of Heracles, or Hercules, is one of 
which we hear much more evil than good in the 
Poems, if indeed we hear any good at all. The 
climax of his misdeeds is in the case of Iphitos, the 
possessor of certain fine mares. Heracles became his 
guest, slew him, and carried off the animals 2 . Yet, 
he is nowhere held up to reprobation. Indeed he seems 
to be a sharer of the banquets of the gods, and has 
Hebe for his wife ; his Shade, or Eidolon, however, 
dwelling in the Underworld 3 . If this passage be 
genuine, we can only suppose his crimes to be re- 
deemed, in the public judgmeut, by his courage, toge- 
ther with his divine extraction. And the passage is 
supported by the application to him of the epithet 
th eios, which is given in the Poems only to the two 
Protagonists, Achilles and Odysseus, among the living, 
and to the most distinguished among the dead. Cer- 
tainly, the indignation of the Greeks is against Paris 
the effeminate coward, much more than Paris the 
ravisher. The shame of the abduction lay in the fact 
that he was the guest of Menelaos 4 . And the guilt of 
Aigisthos finds its climax in this, that he slew Agamem- 
non by stealth, at a banquet, like a stalled ox 5 . Piracy, 

1 II. xxii. 371. 2 Od. xxi. 24-30. 

3 Od. xi. 601-604. 4 II. iii. 351-354. 

5 Od. i. 35-37 5 iv. 524-535; xi. 409-420. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 38 1 

again, was regarded, at the very least, with a moral 
indifference 1 , which continued down to the time of 
Thucydides in many parts of Greece 2 . Even Odysseus, 
the model-prince, when he has destroyed the Suitors, 
and is considering how he can repair his wasted sub- 
stance, calculates upon effecting it in part by occasional 
free-booting 3 . To the principle, then, he freely gives 
his sanction ; although he probably attacked the Kicones 
as allies of Troy 4 ; and he disapproved, as it appears, of 
the raid upon the Egyptians, which in one of his fables 
he imputes to his ship's company 5 . This act is denomi- 
nated an outrage 6 ; and some disapproval of pirates is 
implied in another passage 7 . But it is faint. Piracy 
was a practice connected on one side with trade, and 
on the other with fighting; and it seems to have been 
acquitted of guilt for the reason that the gains of the 
pirate's life were the fruit of bravery combined with 
skill, and were not unequally balanced by its dangers. 
And piracy seems to have been practised only upon 
foreigners; of course such foreigners only as did not 
come within the range of any bond of guestship. 

Religion, however, had a considerable moral force. 

The connection in the age of Homer between duty 
on the one side, and religious belief and reverence on 
the other, is well seen 

(a) Negatively, by the faithlessness and ferocity of 
the Cyclops towards men, while he avows his contempt 
for Zeus and the gods 8 . 

(b) By the fact that the persons addicted to sacrifice 
and religious observances are with Homer the upright 

1 Od. iii. 72. 2 Thuc. i. 5. 3 Od. xxiii. 357. 

4 Od. ix. 40. 5 Od. xiv. 259 seqq. 6 Od. xiv. 262. 

7 Od. xxiv. in. 8 Od. ix. 273-280, 356, 368-270. 



383 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

and good men : such as Hector in the Iliad, and Eumaios 
in the Odyssey 1 . 

(c) As our word c righteous/ founded on right, and 
embracing morality, extends also to piety, so in 
Homer the corresponding word d i c a i o s clearly 
embraces duty towards the gods 2 . The Abioi 3 , an 
uncivilised nation, are with him c the most righteous 
of men.' 

(d) Conversely, the character of the theoudes, or 
god-revering man, is identified with that of the 
stranger-loving, and opposed to that of the insolent, 
the savage, and the unrighteous 4 . 

(e) The wicked man cannot by sacrifices secure the 
fruits of his crime. Aigisthos offers them in abun- 
dance: but the gods destroy him by the hand of 
Orestes 5 . 

(f) Though the outward act of sacrifice did not of 
necessity imply a corresponding frame of mind, yet it 
was of religious tendency. The ordinary offering, at the 
common meal, of a portion to the deity as the giver, 
may be compared with the c grace ' among Christians. 
In solemn celebrations, and sometimes indeed at the 
private meal 6 , prayer and thanksgiving were commonly 
combined with the rite. 

(g) The gods, as we have already seen, were thought, 
in a real though incomplete measure, to be rewarders 
of the good, and punishers of the bad. 

(h) There was a strong general belief in the efficacy 
of prayer, testified by its practice. 

We must not deny the reality of moral distinctions 

1 II. xxiv. 68. Od. xiv. 420. 2 Od. iii. 132-136. 

3 II. xiii. 6. 4 Od. vi. 120. 

6 Od. iii. 272-275; i. 35-43. 6 Od. xiv. 423. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 383 

in Homer upon any such ground as that he sometimes 
describes greatness and strength by names rather de- 
noting virtue, and mentions, for example, the services 
c which the inferior render to the good 1 .' The language 
even of our own day has not yet escaped from this 
very improper confusion. We still speak of the c better 
classes/ and of c good society.' By him, as by us, the 
error is escaped in other cases : for he calls the Suitor- 
Princes c very inferior men 2 .' And the word a g a t h o s, 
or good, has unquestionably in some passages a solely 
moral meaning 3 : while it is never applied to any 
bad man or action, however energetic or successful. 

There was a voice of conscience, and a sentiment 
ranging between reverence and fear, within the breast. 
Sometimes this ascended to a point far higher than 
the mere avoidance of crime. After his conquest of 
the Hupoplakian Thebes, Achilles would not despoil 
the body of the slain king Eetion, and burned it with 
the precious armour on. He was restrained, not by 
general opinion, but by the inward sentiment called 
sebas 4 . To strip the corpse would have been the 
usual course. Telemachos endeavours, of course in 
vain, to arouse in the minds of the Suitors anemesis 5 
of self-judgment, or sense of the moral law. To this 
nemesis (often inacccurately rendered as revenge) 
Menelaos appeals, when exciting the Greeks to defend 
the body of Patroclos 6 from insult. But the whole 
matter is best learned from an address of Telemachos 
to the Suitors, where he says (a) c rouse within you of 
yourselves a nemesis (or moral sense); and (b) an albus 
(a sense of honour, or regard to opinion of your fellow- 

1 Od. xv. 323. 2 Od. xxi. 325. 3 II. vi. 162; ix. 341. 

4 II. vi. 417. 5 Od. ii. 138. 6 II. xvii. 254. 



384 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

citizens); and (c) fear the wrath of the gods 1 .' These 
three principles were the three great pillars of morality. 
The motive of albas may be stirred by the brjfxov (pans, 
or public sentiment, which we find to have been an 
engine of great power with Phcenix 2 , and even with 
Penelope and Nausicaa. This aidos is a sentiment 
which has ultimate reference to the standard of opinion; 
but it does not require that opinion to be in present 
and immediate action. It is self-judgment, according 
to the standard supplied by the ideas of others; as 
nemesis is self-judgment by the inward law. This albas 
ranges through a great variety of sub-meanings — defer- 
ence, tenderness, scrupulosity, compassion, self-respect, 
piety, bashfulness, honour, and every form of shame, 
excepting false shame. Hesiod says in his iron, or 
post-Homeric age, that albas, along with vixens, had 
vanished from the earth. 

With respect to blood-shedding, the morality of the 
Greeks of Homer was extremely loose. To have killed 
a man was considered a misfortune, or at most an error 
in point of prudence 3 . It was punished by a fine payable 
to relatives, which it was usual to accept in full satisfac- 
tion. But fugitives from their vengeance were every- 
where received without displeasure or surprise. Priam, 
appearing unexpectedly before Achilles, is compared 
to a man who, having had the misfortune to slay 
somebody, appears on a sudden in a strange place 4 . 

The cases of such homicides are numerous in the 
Poems. It may be enough to observe that Patroclos, 
whose character is one of great gentleness, committed 



1 Od. ii. 64-67. 2 II. ix. 460. 

3 II. ix. 632. 4 II. xxiv. 480- 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 385 

one in his youth without premeditation \ and was 
therefore given over by his father Menoitios into the 
honourable charge of Peleus: that Ajax had received 
Lycophron after homicide, and c honoured him as if 
a beloved parent 2 : 3 and that Telemachos receives 
Theoclumenos, and gives him the place of honour, 
when he had simply announced himself as a fugitive 
from the vengeance of the powerful kindred of a man 
whom he had killed 3 , without stating anything about 
the cause. 

It is difficult however to trace in Homer the existence 
of an universal law of relative duty, between man and 
man as such. The chief restraints upon misdeeds were 
to be found in laws, understood but not written, and 
which were binding as between certain men, not be- 
tween all men. These were 

1. Members of a family. 

2. Members of a State or nation. 

3. Persons bound by the law of guestship. 

4. Suppliants and those whom they addressed. 

The weakest point of the Homeric system of ethics 
is its tenderness (to say the least) for fraud under cer- 
tain conditions. This has ever been indeed a difficult 
chapter in the science of Ethics: it is probably one, 
in which the human faculties will ever, or very long, 
remain unequal to the task of drawing at once clearly 
and firmly, in abstract statement, the lines of discrimi- 
nation between right and wrong. In Homer, how- 
ever, we seem to find the balance not doubtfully deter- 
mined, but manifestly inclining the wrong way. Into 
the mouth of Achilles, indeed, he has put the most 

1 II. xxiii. 86. 2 II. xv. 429-440. 3 Od. xv. 260 seqq. 

c c 



386 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP, 

powerful denunciation of falsehood ever uttered by 
man 1 . Pope's rendering is not quite unworthy — 

'Who dares think one thing, and another tell, 
My heart detests him as the gates of hell.' 

This, however, we may consider as in great part belong- 
ing to the single character of Achilles. It is a principle 
worked out in his entire conduct, without a single flaw. 
His soul and actions are sky-clear. Among the Homeric 
deities, there is nothing that approaches him in this re- 
spect. Indeed it is especially in the region of the Immor- 
tals that we find the plague-spot planted. In Athene, by 
far the loftiest of his Olympian conceptions, we find 
a distinct condescension not simply to stratagem, but 
to fraud : and she, with Odysseus, finds a satisfaction, 
when they respectively allow to one another the praise 
of excelling all others within this department, she 
among the gods, he among mortal men 2 . 

At this we may not be greatly surprised; for force 
and energy already outweigh the moral element in the 
whole conception of the supernatural : and the character 
of Odysseus, with its many and great virtues, has a 
bias in this direction. But we may be much more 
surprised to find what we may fairly call a glorification 
of cunning, if not of fraud, exhibited in the character 
of that Greek chieftain, who, next to Achilles, may 
be thought most to approximate to the ideal of Homeric 
chivalry. Diomed meets the noble Glaucos on the 
field : they explain, and recognise as subsisting between 
them, the laws of hereditary guestship. The Greek 
then proposes the exchange of arms, which Glaucos 

1 II. ix. 312 (Pope, v. 412). 2 Od. xiii. 294 seqq. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 387 

accepts: and Diomed obtains the value of a hundred 
oxen in return for the value of nine. 

We may however observe, that Achilles, in whom 
comes out the bright blaze of perfect openness and 
truth, is not only the Coryphaeus of the Greek band 
of heroes, but he is above all things the type of 
Hellenism ; the model of that character, which Homer 
considered to belong to his race. And, as far as we 
can perceive, though there is a delight in the use of 
deceit as stratagem for a particular end, the general 
course of thought is unreserved and open : the Poems 
show us nothing like life in a mask. 

The idea of sin, considered as an offence against 
the divine order, has by no means been effaced from 
the circle of moral ideas in Homer. It seems to be 
strongly implied in the word araa-Odkir], which is applied 
to deep, deliberate wickedness ; to sinning against 
light; to doing what, but for a guilty ignorance, we 
must know to be wrong. For, when it is intended to 
let in any allowance for mere weakness, or for solici- 
tation from without, or for a simply foolish blindness, 
then the word art] is used. And I doubt whether, in 
any one instance throughout the Poems, these two 
designations are ever applied to one and the same mis- 
conduct. It is certainly contrary to the general, and 
almost universal, rule. The atasthalie is something 
done with clear sight and knowledge, with the full 
and conscious action of the will : it is something re- 
garded as wholly without excuse, as tending to an entire 
moral deadness, and as entailing final punishment alike 
without warning and without mercy. Nothing can ac- 
count for the introduction into a moral code of a form 
of offence conceived with such intensity, and ranked 

c c 2 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

so high, except the belief that the man committing it 
had deliberately set aside that inward witness to truth 
and righteousness which is supplied by the law of our 
nature, and in the repudiation of which the universal 
and consentient voice of mankind has always placed 
the most awful responsibility, the extremest degree of 
guilt, that the human being can incur. 

The wicked man, thus hardened in his deliberate 
wickedness (aravOaXirj), is then driven on by the deity, 
that is, as we should say, by a divine order and dis- 
pensation, in his mad career. Of this penal mechanism 
Athene is, in the Odyssey, the instrument. When the 
stool has been hurled at Odysseus disguised in his own 
house, and the insolence of the Suitors has reached its 
height, Telemachos tells them ' ye are mad with 
excess of food and wine : some deity now drives you 1 .' 
Before this we are told c Athene would not let the 
haughty Suitors stop in their biting insolence 2 / And 
when Amphinomos has received the friendly but very 
solemn warning of Odysseus 3 , he is shaken inwardly, 
and a presentiment of calamity presses on him. Here 
the Poet goes beyond that c hardening of Pharaoh's 
heart,' with which a comparison is naturally suggested, 
and indicates that, even while he was suffering this 
pain, which may almost be construed into a state of 
indecision, Athene held him entangled inwardly in the 
meshes of his guilt, that he might be conquered by 
Telemachos 4 . The subsequent attempt of Amphinomos 
to restrain outrageous excess appears to show, that he 
was still at this time halting between two opinions. 
The sentiment of the Poet, usually so just, appears here 

1 Od. xviii. 406. 2 Od. xviii. 346. 3 Od. xviii. 125-150. 
* Od. xviii. 155. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 389 

even to tremble on the verge of a dark fatalism. But 
this belongs to ulterior and later processes of thought. 
What we have here to notice is, how very deeply the 
idea of moral guilt was engraven in the mind of the 
Poet, and therefore probably of his age. 

The peculiar word atasthalie is chiefly used by 
Homer to describe the prolonged and hardened wicked- 
ness of the Suitors. The weakest case of its applica- 
tion is to the obstinate folly of Hector in refusing the 
counsel of Poludamas, and thus ruining the Trojan 
cause 1 : but here it is applied by the hero himself, not 
by any one else to him. 

The view of patience in the Ethics of Homer is a 
very noble one. It is with him a prime virtue. In- 
deed, the characteristic merit of one of the Protagonists, 
Odysseus, is to be patient {-noXvrXas^ as his distinguishing 
intellectual endowment is to be tioXv^tis ; resourceful, 
elastic, versatile. This patience of the Homeric hero 
is as far as possible from being a mere acquiescence in 
fatality, or a cowardly retirement from the battle of life 
in order to put the soul to sleep. It is full of reason 
and feeling; it involves and largely partakes of self- 
restraint ; it might almost be defined as moral courage. 
It is an active, not a passive function of the mind. 
Its action, indeed, is generally confined to the inward 
sphere. Yet it is not always so confined 2 . And it is 
always on the verge of, and ever capable of being de- 
veloped into, the most heroic energy. 

The sense of justice is also very strong in the Poems. 

Agamemnon indeed is unjust, as well as rapacious; 

but, notwithstanding his sense of responsibility, and his 

fraternal affection, Agamemnon is not a character 

1 II. xxii. 104. 2 II. xxiv. 505. 



39° 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



[CHAP. 



towards whom Homer intends to attract our sympathies. 
The Greek chieftains seem never among themselves to 
deviate from fairness, except in the case of the chariot- 
race. It is singular that three thousand years ago, as 
now, horse-racing should have been found to offer the 
subtlest temptations to the inward integrity of man. 
The winning positions of Diomed 1 and Eumelos in the 
race are reversed by a divine intervention, which throws 
Eumelos into the very last place. And it seems to be from 
a sense of substantial justice that Achilles proposes to 
commit what would have been a technical breach of it 
by giving him the second honour. But Antilochos, who 
has gained the third place against Menelaos by a sheer 
trick, remonstrates ; and Achilles, with his supreme 
courtesy, introduces for Eumelos an additional prize to 
avoid even the semblance of wrong. Then comes the 
turn of Menelaos, who vehemently protests against the 
proceeding of Antilochos. The young warrior, who 
had been greatly excited against Eumelos, at once 
acknowledges the justice of the complaint, and offers to 
give Menelaos not only the prize in question, but any- 
thing else that he possesses, rather than offend him. 
Upon this Menelaos, not to be outdone in the contest 
of high manners, and without doubt recollecting that all 
his competitors are suffering in the war on his behalf, at 
once surrenders the second prize and takes the third. Thus, 
notwithstanding the device effected in the race itself, 
a strong sense of right predominates in the whole scene 
of the distribution, and governs the final adjustment. 

The high estimate of the virtue of justice, thus ob- 
servable, perhaps connects itself with that strong po- 
litical genius which had already found development 
1 II. xxiii. 373-402. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 39 1 

among the Greeks, inasmuch as justice is to political 
society as its vital spark. But again, justice is moral 
symmetry- and in it the exact spirit of the Greek 
would, on this ground, find at least a strong speculative 
satisfaction, which would help to determine the habits 
of the mind and life. 

The idea of self-restraint, which seems to admit only 
of a limited application to the order of deities, is ex- 
ceeding strong in the Homeric man, where he at all 
approaches excellence. Hence we find, in various 
forms, excess among the Immortals, such as would not 
have been tolerated in the Achaian circle. The howling 
of Ares 1 in pain when wounded, his loss of all power 
of reflection on learning the death of his son 2 , and the 
licence which prevailed among the gods, with only few 
exceptions, in matters relating to sexual passion, are 
striking examples. But the same observation may be 
made in lesser matters. Inextinguishable laughter is 
excited in the Olympian Court, when the gods see 
Hephaistos limp about to minister the wine. But the 
Achaians never laugh with violence. If there could be 
a case warranting it at all, it Would be one like that of 
Oilean Ajax, when he slipped and fell amidst the 
ordure 3 . Even here, however, self-control is not lost. 
They only smiled, or laughed mildly or gently (fjftv yi- 
\a<T(rav), at the strange predicament 4 . 

The self-command of heroes, which is thus observable 
in minor matters, extends also to the greatest. When 
we find any virtue prominently exhibited in the two 
Protagonists, we may without more ado be certain that 
Homer intends to give it a very high place. And by 

1 II. v. 860. 2 II. xv. 115. 3 II. xxiii. 777. 

* II. xxiii. 784. 



39 3 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

far the greatest instances of self-command are given us 
in these two characters. On this basis is founded the 
singular courtesy of Achilles, in the midst of his resent- 
ment, to the heralds who came by order of Agamemnon 
to remove Briseis 1 . When he was in danger of losing 
himself for the moment, on the occasion of the First 
Assembly, a divine interposition took place to enable 
him to hold his equilibrium. And many times, when 
he feels the tide of wrath rising within him, he seems 
to eye his own passion as the tiger is eyed by its 
keeper, and puts a spell upon it so that it dare not 
spring. When, for example, he is sensible that the 
incautious words of Priam 2 are kindling within him 
a fire that might blast the aged suppliant, he seizes the 
moment, and, ere it is yet too late, bids him to desist. 
Whenever, after the death of Patroclos, his mind goes 
back upon the thought of Agamemnon and the wrong, 
he breaks sharply away from the subject 3 . So it is with 
this tempestuous character. But not less remarkable 
is the self-command of Odysseus. This extends to all 
circumstances : it suffices alike for the cave of Polu- 
phemos - y for enforcing silence in the body of the wooden 
horse; for bearing in his disguise the insults of the 
Suitors. But most of all in point is that wonderful 
speech in answer to the insolence of Eumalos, the 
Phaiakian prince, which teaches us more than any com- 
position with which I am acquainted, up to what a 
point emotion, sarcasm, and indignation can be carried 
without any loss of self-command. 

The fiery Diomed also offers us, in his submission to 
the reproof of Agamemnon, a fine example of this great 

1 II. i. 329-336. 2 II. xxiv. 560. 

3 II. xvi. 60; xviii. 112; xix. 65. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 393 

quality 1 . But in truth it extends to the army, that is, 
the nation. We see it in their stern silence on the 
march, and in the battle-field. And their manner of 
applause in the Assembly is always described by a term 
different from that which the Poet uses to describe the 
corresponding indication of feeling among the Trojans. 
The Greeks usually shouted (Maxpv) their applause ; 
the Trojans rattled or clattered it (ZinKeXabrjo-av). 

In truth, there lies at the root of the Homeric model 
of the good or the great man, in a practical form, 
that which Aristotle has expressed scientifically as a 
condition of moral virtue; a spirit of moderation, a 
love of to jji^o-ovj or the mean. There should be mode- 
ration in sorrow 2 , moderation in wrath, moderation in 
pleasure. Not a mean between extremes of mere quan- 
tity ; but a true mean, an inward equipoise of the mind, 
and in the composition of mental qualities, abhorring 
excess in any one of them, because it mars the com- 
bination as a whole, and throws the rest into deficiency. 
This sentiment is conveyed by Homer in a multitude 
of slight and fine shadings of expression, like that 
insensible action of the hand in driving which keeps 
a straight instead of a fluctuating line. We trace it in 
the frequent expression ovbe Zoikzv : in kvai<Ti\Aos : in the 
tivkivov tiros ; in the (ppr]v fy-nthos : in the censure implied 
by fjieya epyov, and in a multitude of other expressions. 

This being so, it follows that one of the qualities 
most unequivocally vicious in Homer is an absolute 
implacability ; that state of mind towards which Achilles 
for a time appears to lean; first, with regard to the 
Creeks, secondly, with regard to Hector ; to both the 
living and the dead. It is a sin against Nature, rather 
1 II. iv. 411-418. 2 II. xxiv. 419. 



394 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. 

than one of mere infirmity; because the very first 
requisite of such a feeling, to give it even colourable 
justice, is that the person entertaining it should himself 
be without fault, or weakness, or shortcoming of what- 
ever kind. 

This law> of moderation in quantity, was bodily 
as well as mental. Homer sings the praises of wine ; 
but he reprehends even that mild form of excess which 
does no more than promote garrulity 1 . When the 
Greeks are about to suffer calamity in the Return, he 
lets them go in a state of drunkenness to their As- 
sembly 2 . Elpenor dies by an accidental fall from 
drunkenness, and his character is accordingly described 
in terms of disparagement 3 . A legend is introduced to 
show the mischief of this vice, which even the Suitor 
Antinoos condemns 4 . No character esteemed by the 
Poet ever acts in any matter under the influence of 
liquor. It was for him the dew, not the deluge, of the 
soul j and it was nothing more. The gods indeed sit 
by the bowl the livelong day 5 ; but for men it is not 
seemly to tarry for hours at the sacred (that is regular 
and public) feast. And this, not only in cases like 
that of wine, Where the truth is obvious, and the excess 
repulsive ; but in instances where it would less be 
expected. c Do not go to bed too soon : excess of sleep 
is itself avirj, a trouble V c Do not admire/ says 
Odysseus, c or wonder at your father to excess 7 / C I 
disapprove,' says Menelaos 8 , c of excess, either in attach- 
ments or in aversions: better to have all things in 

1 Od. xiv. 463-466. 2 Od. iii. 139. 

3 Od. x. 552-560; xi. 61. 4 Od. xxi. 293-304. 

5 II. ix. 69. 6 Od. xv. 394. 

7 Od. xvi. 202, 203. 8 Od. xv. 70. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 395 

moderation.' The exact word is cuo-ijua, according to 
ato-a, which may be said to signify the moral element 
of measure, order, just proportion, in fate. 

This general disinclination to excess is happily ex- 
emplified in relation to excess of wickedness. 

The extremest forms of human depravity are un- 
known to the practice of the Greeks in the Homeric 
age. We find among them no infanticide ; no canni- 
balism j no practice, or mention, of unnatural lusts : 
incest is profoundly abhorred, and even its uninten- 
tioned commission in the case of Oidipous and Epicaste 
was visited with the heaviest calamities. The old age 
of parents is treated with respect and affection. Slavery 
itself is mild- and predial slavery apparently rare. 
There is no polygamy; no domestic concubinage; no 
torture. There are no human sacrifices ; and even 
down to the time of Euripides the tradition subsisted 
that they were not a Greek but a foreign usage 1 . The 
legend of the seizure of Ganymedes, which was after- 
wards deeply tainted with shame, is in Homer perfectly 
beautiful and pure. Adultery is detested. The life- 
long bond of man and wife does not wholly yield even 
to violence : absence the most prolonged does not shake 
it off: and there is no escape from it by the at best 
poor and doubtful invention of divorce. 

There is undoubtedly something savage in the wrath 
of Odysseus against the Suitors, as there is in the 
wrath of Achilles against Agamemnon and the Greeks. 
Neither of these two are represented to us as faultless 
personages. But when they err, it is in measure and 
degree ; in the exaggeration of what, as to its essence, 
virtue justifies, and even requires. But an exceeding 
1 Eurip. Iphig. in Aul. Wos iirj Trarpiov. 



396 juventus mundi. 



CHAP. 



nobleness marks the rebuke of Odysseus to the Nurse 
Eurucleia, when she is about to shout in exultation 
over the fallen Suitors. c It is wrong/ he says \ c to exult 
over the slain, who have been overthrown by divine 
providence, and by their own perverse deeds/ 

So again, while Hecuba wishes she could find it in 
her heart to eat Achilles, Achilles 2 utters a similar 
wish with regard to Hector. But the wish is that he 
could prevail upon himself to perform the act ; which 
accordingly he cannot do. From these passages, as well 
as from the case of the Cyclops, we may learn that 
cannibalism was within the knowledge, though not 
the experience, of the nation ; that it might even come 
before them as an image in the hideous dreams of 
passion at seasons of extreme excitement, but never 
could enter the circle of their actual life. 

Indeed, the manifestations of mere personal revenge 
in the Poems are almost wholly among the divinities, 
not the mortals. The vengeance of Achilles has refer- 
ence not to an arbitrary or imaginary code, but to a 
gross breach by Agamemnon of the laws of honour and 
justice. The vengeance of Odysseus vindicates not 
merely the duty of political obedience, but the violated 
order of society, against depraved and lawless men. 

The point, however, in which the ethical tone of the 
heroic age stands highest of all is, perhaps, the strength 
of the domestic affections. 

They are prevalent in Olympos ; and they constitute 
an amiable feature in the portraiture even of deities 
who have nothing else to recommend them. Not only 
does Poseidon care for the brutal Poluphemos^ and Zeus 
for the noble and gallant Sarpedon, but Ares for As- 
1 Od. xxii. 412. 2 II. xxii. 346. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 397 

calaphos, and Aphrodite for JEnea.s. In the Trojan 
royal family, there is little of the higher morality ; but 
parental affection is vehement in the characters, some- 
what relaxed as they are in fibre, both of Priam and 
of Hecuba. Odysseus chooses for the title, by which 
he would be known, that of the Father of Telemachos K 
The single portraiture of Penelope, ever yearning 
through twenty years for her absent husband, and then 
praying to be removed from life, that she may never 
gladden the spirit of a meaner man, could not have 
been designed or drawn, except in a country where the 
standard, in this great branch of morality, was a high 
one. This is the palmary and all-sufficient instance. 
Others might be mentioned to follow, though none can 
equal it. 

Perhaps even beyond other cases of domestic relation, 
the natural sentiment, as between parents and children, 
was profoundly ingrained in the morality of the heroic 
age. The feeling of Achilles for Peleus, of Odysseus 
for his father Laertes and his mother Anticleia, exhibits 
an affection alike deep and tender. Those who die 
young, like Simoeisios 2 by the hand of Ajax, die before 
they have had time to repay to their parents their 
threptra, the pains and care of rearing them. Phoenix, 
in the height of wrath with his father, and in a country 
where homicide was thought a calamity far more than 
a crime, is restrained from offering him any violence, 
lest he should be branded, among the Achaians, with the 
stamp of parricide 3 . All this was reciprocated on the 
side of parents : even in Troy, as we may judge from 
the conduct and words of Hector 4 , of Andromache 5 , 

1 II. ii. 260. 2 II. iv. 473-479. 3 II. ix. 459-461. 

4 II. vi. 476. 5 II. xxii. 483-507. 



398 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

of Priam 1 . While the father of Odysseus pined on 
earth for his return, his mother died of a broken heart 
for his absence 2 . And the Shade of Achilles in the 
Underworld only craves to know whether Peleus is still 
held in honour ; and a momentary streak of light and 
joy gilds his dreary and gloomy existence, when he 
learns that his son Neoptolemos has proved himself 
worthy of his Sire, and has attained to fame in war. 
The very selfish nature of Agamemnon does not prevent 
his feeling a watchful anxiety for his brother Menelaos 3 . 
Where human interests spread and ramify by this 
tenacity of domestic affections, there the generations 
of men are firmly knit together ; concern for the future 
becomes a spring of noble action- affection for the 
past engenders an emulation of its greatness- and as 
it is in history that these sentiments find their means 
of subsistence, the primitive poet of such a country 
scarcely can but be an historian. 

We do> not find, indeed, that relationships are traced 
in Homer by name beyond the degree of first cousins 4 . 
But that the tie of blood was much more widely re- 
cognised, we may judge from the passage in the Second 
Iliad, which shows that the divisions of the army were 
subdivided into tribes (cj)v\a) and clans (0p?Jrpat) 5 . 
Guestship likewise descended through generations : 
Diomed and Glaucos exchange arms, and agree to avoid 
one another in fight, because their grandfathers had 
been xenoi 6 . 

The intensity of the Poet's admiration for beautiful 
form is exhibited alike with reference to men, women, 

1 II. xxii. 424. 2 Od. xi. 196, 202. 

3 II. x. 234-240. 4 II. xv. 419-422, 525, 554. 

5 II. ii. 362. 6 II. vi. 216, 226-231. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 399 

and animals. Achilles, his greatest warrior, is also 
his most beautiful man : Ajax, the second soldier, has 
also the second place in beauty according to Odysseus K 
Nireus, his rival for that place, is commemorated for his 
beauty, though in other respects he is declared to have 
been an insignificant personage 2 . Odysseus, elderly, 
if not old, is carried into rapture by the beauty of 
Nausicaa 3 . Not Helen alone, but his principal women 
in general, short of positive old age (for Penelope is 
included), are beautiful. He felt intensely, as appears 
from many passages, the beauty of the horse. But this 
admiring sentiment towards all beauty of form appears 
to have been an entirely pure one. His only licentious 
episode, that of the Net of Hephaistos, he draws from 
an Eastern mythology. He recounts it as sung before 
men only, not women; and not in Greece, but in 
Scherie, to an audience of Phoenician extraction and 
associations. It is in Troy that the gloating eyes of 
the old men follow Helen as she walks 4 . The only 
Greeks, to whom the like is imputed, are the dissolute 
and hateful Suitors of the Odyssey. The proceedings 
of Here in the Fourteenth Iliad are strictly subordinated 
to policy. They are scarcely decent; and a single 
sentiment of Thetis may be criticised 5 . But the ob- 
servations I would offer are, first that all the question- 
able incidents or sentiments are in the sphere of the 
mythology, which in several important respects tended 
to corrupt, and not to elevate, mankind. Secondly, how 
trifling an item do they contribute to the great Ency- 
clopaedia of human life, which is presented to us in the 
Poems. Thirdly, even among the great writers of the 

1 Od. xi. 550. 2 II. ii. 676-680. 3 Od. vi. 151- 169. 

* II. iii. 156-158. 5 II. xxiv. 130. 



400 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Christian ages, how few will abide the application of 
a rigid test in this respect so well as Homer. And 
lastly, let us observe the thorough rectitude of purpose 
which governs the Poems : where Artemis, the severely 
pure, is commonly represented as an object of venera- 
tion, but Aphrodite is as commonly represented in 
such a manner as to attract aversion or contempt : and 
when, among human characters, no licentious act is 
ever so exhibited, as to confuse or pervert the sense 
of right and wrong. The Poet's treatment of Paris 
on earth, whom he has made his only contemptible 
prince or warrior, is in strict keeping with his treat- 
ment of Aphrodite among Immortals. 

With regard to anything which is unbecoming in 
the human person, the delicacy of Homer is uniform 
and perhaps unrivalled. In the case of women, there 
is not a single allusion to it. In the case of men, the 
only allusions we find are grave, and admirably handled. 
When Odysseus threatens to strip Thersites, it is only 
to make him an object of general and unmitigated 
disgust 1 . When Priam foretells the mangling of his 
own naked corpse by animals 2 , the insult to natural 
decency thus anticipated serves only to express the in- 
tense agony of his mind. The scene in which Odysseus 
emerges from the sea on the coast of Scherie, is perhaps 
among the most careful, and yet the most simple and 
unaffected, exhibitions of true modesty in all literature. 
And the mode, in which all this is presented to us, 
suggests that it forms a true picture of the general 
manners of the nation at the time, That this delicacy 
long subsisted in Greece, we learn from Thucydides 3 . 
The morality of the Homeric period is that of the 
1 II. ii. 262. 2 II. xxii. 74-76. 3 i. 6. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 40 1 

childhood of a race : the morality of the classic times 
belongs to its manhood. On the side of the latter, 
it may be urged that two causes in particular tend to 
raise its level. With regular forms of political and 
civil organization, there grows up in written law a 
public testimonial on behalf, in the main, of truth, 
honesty, and justice. For, while private conduct re- 
presents the human mind under the bias of every 
temptation, the law, as a general rule, speaks that 
which our perceptions would affirm were there no such 
bias. But further, with law and order comes the 
clearer idea and fuller enjoyment of the fruits of 
labour ; and for the sake of security each man adopts, 
and in general acts upon, a recognition of the rights of 
property. These are powerful agencies for good in a 
great department of morals. Besides these, with a more 
imposing beauty, but probably with less of practical 
efficacy, the speculative intellect of man goes to work, 
and establishes abstract theories of virtue, vice, and 
their consequences, which by their comprehensiveness 
and method put out of countenance the indeterminate 
ethics of remote antiquity. All this is to be laid in one 
scale. But the other would, I think, preponderate, if it 
were only from the single consideration, that the creed of 
the Homeric age brought both the sense and the dread 
of the divine justice to bear in restraint of vice and 
passion. And upon the whole, after the survey which 
has been taken, it would in my opinion be somewhat 
rash to assert, that either the duties of men to the deity, 
or the larger claims of man upon man, were better 
understood in the age of Pericles or Alexander, of 
Sylla or Augustus, than in the age of Homer. 

Dd 



403 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Perhaps the following sketch of Greek life in the 
heroic age may not be far wide of the truth. 

The youth of high birth, not then so widely as now 
separated from the low, is educated under tutors in 
reverence for his parents, and in desire to emulate 
their fame ; he shares in manly and in graceful sports ; 
acquires the use of arms ; hardens himself in the pursuit, 
then of all others the most indispensable, the hunting 
down of wild beasts 3 gains the knowledge of medicine, 
probably also of the lyre. Sometimes, with many-sided 
intelligence, he even sets himself to learn how to build 
his own house or ship, or how to drive the plough firm 
and straight down the furrow, as well as to reap the 
standing corn \ 

And, when scarcely a man, he bears arms for his 
country or his tribe, takes part in its government, 
learns by direct instruction, and by practice, how to rule 
mankind through the use of reasoning and persuasive 
power in political assemblies, attends and assists in 
sacrifices to the gods. For, all this time, he has been 
in kindly and free relations, not only with his parents, 
his family, his equals of his own age, but with the 
attendants, although they are but serfs, who have 
known him from infancy on his father's domain. 

He is indeed mistaught with reference to the use of 
the strong hand. Human life is cheap , so cheap that 
even a mild and gentle youth may be betrayed, upon a 
casual quarrel over some childish game with his friend, 
into taking it away. And even so throughout his life, 
should some occasion come that stirs up his passions 
from their depths, a wild beast, as it were, awakes 
within him, and he loses his humanity for the time, 
1 Od. xviii. 366-375. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 403 

until reason has re-established her control. Short, 
however, of such a desperate crisis, though he could 
not for the world rob his friend or his neighbour, yet 
he might be not unwilling to triumph over him to his 
cost, for the sake of some exercise of signal ingenuity ; 
while, from a hostile tribe or a foreign shore, or from 
the individual who has become his enemy, he will 
acquire by main force what he can, nor will he scruple 
to inflict on him by stratagem even deadly injury 1 . 
He must, however, give liberally to those who are in 
need ; to the wayfarer, to the poor, to the suppliant who 
begs from him shelter and protection. On the other 
hand, should his own goods be wasted, the liberal and 
open-handed contributions of his neighbours will not 
be wanting to replace them. 

His early youth is not solicited into vice by finding 
sensual excess in vogue, or the opportunities of it 
glaring in his eye, and sounding in his ear. Gluttony 
is hardly known; drunkenness is marked only by its 
degrading character, and by the evil consequences that 
flow so straight from it ; and it is abhorred. But he 
loves the genial use of meals, and rejoices in the hour 
when the guests, gathered in his father's hall, enjoy a 
liberal hospitality, and the wine mantles in the cup 2 . 
For then they listen to the strains of the minstrel, who 
celebrates before them the newest and the dearest of the 
heroic tales that stir their blood, and rouse their manly 
resolution to be worthy, in their turn, of their country and 
their country's heroes. He joins the dance in the festivals 
of religion ; the maiden's hand upon his wrist, and the 
gilded knife gleaming from his belt, as they course from 

1 Od. xiii. 252-270. 2 Od. viii. 5-11; xiv< 193-198. 

D d 2 



404 JUVENTUS MUNDT. [CHAP. 

point to point, or wheel in round on round 1 . That 
maiden, some Nausicaa, or some Hermione of a 
neighbouring district, in due time he weds, amidst 
the rejoicings of their families, and brings her home to 
cherish her, c from the flower to the ripeness of the 
grape/ with respect, fidelity, and love. 

Whether as a governor or as governed, politics bring 
him, in ordinary circumstances, no great share of 
trouble. Government is a machine, of which the wheels 
move easily enough ; for they are well oiled by 
simplicity of usages, ideas, and desires; by unity of 
interest ; by respect for authority, and for those in 
whose hands it is reposed; by love of the common 
country, the common altar, the common Festivals and 
Games, to which already there is large resort. In peace 
he settles the disputes of his people, in war he lends 
them the precious example of heroic daring. He con- 
sults them, and advises with them, on all grave affairs ; 
and his wakeful care for their interests is rewarded by 
the ample domains which are set apart for the prince 
by the people 2 . Finally, he closes his eyes, delivering 
over the sceptre to his son, and leaving much peace 
and happiness around him 3 . 

Such was, probably, the state of society amidst the 
concluding phase of which Homer's youth, at least, was 
passed. But a dark and deep social revolution seems 
to have followed the Trojan war ; we have its workings 
already become visible in the Odyssey. Scarcely could 
even Odysseus cope with it, contracted though it was for 
him within the narrow bounds of Ithaca. On the main- 
land, the bands of the elder society are soon wholly 

1 II. xviii. 594-602. 2 II. ix. 581 ; xii. 313. 

3 Od. xxiii. 281-284. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE, 405 

broken. The Pelopid, Neleid, (Enid houses, are a 
wreck: disorganization invites the entry of new forces 
to control it ; the Dorian lances bristle on the iEtolian 
beach, and the primitive Greece, the patriarchal Greece, 
the Greece of Homer, is no more. 



Section II. 

We must not dismiss the subject of Ethics or morals 
without considering what is both a criterion and an 
essential part of it, namely, the position held by 
Woman in the heroic age 1 . 

Within the pale of that civilisation, which has grown 
up under the combined influence of the Christian 
religion as paramount, and what may be called the 
Teutonic manners as secondary, we find the idea of 
Woman and her social position raised to a point higher 
than in the Poems of Homer. But it would be hard to 
discover any period of history, or country of the world, 
not being Christian, in which women stood so high as 
with the Greeks of the heroic age. 

I will here very briefly illustrate this proposition 
under several heads; and first, that of marriage with 
its accessories. 

The essence of Homeric marriage seems to have 
lain in cohabitation, together with a solemn public 
acknowledgment of the relation of the parties as man 
and wife, and with an attendant ceremonial such as 
is represented on the Shield of Achilles. This might 

1 For a fuller exposition, see Studies on Homer, Olympos, 
Sect. 9. See also Mr. Buckle's Lecture on Woman, in Frazer's 
Magazine. 



406 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP, 

apparently be preceded by cohabitation with the 
intention of marriage. Hence Briseis is called by 
Achilles his wife 1 ; yet in the very same speech he 
speaks of himself as open to marriage with another 
woman; and Briseis, in her lament over Patroclos, says 2 ? 
c Thou wouldst not let me weep, but saidst thou wouldst 
make me the wife of Achilles, and take me by ship to 
Phthie, and feast (i. e. celebrate) my marriage among the 
Myrmidons. 5 So that the full accomplishment of the 
union was apparently to follow the expected return; 
and she was in the meantime a wife-designate. 

It is in the interest of the woman that the law of 
marriage should be strict, and that marriage should be 
single. Among the Homeric Greeks we have not the 
slightest trace of polygamy ; or of a woman taken from 
her husband, and made the wife of another man during 
his lifetime. The Suitors always urge Penelope to 
re-marry, on the ground that Odysseus must be dead, and 
that there is no hope of his return. A shorter period 
of absence, than that assigned to him, is recognised by 
the law of England as making re-marriage legal. A 
presumption of death brought near to certainty must, 
under the conditions of human affairs, be taken to 
suffice; for, says Butler, with a sweep of compre- 
hensive wisdom, c Probability is the very guide of life 3 / 
But in the case of Agamemnon, there was no pre- 
sumption of death ; and, accordingly, the act of 
Aigisthos, is described by Zeus as a double outrage, 
made up of two crimes; the last part of it being 

1 II. ix. 340 seqq. 

2 II. xix. 295 seqq. I omit the word Kovpidirjv, which would 
require a discussion. 

3 Introduction to the Analogy. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 407 

the murder, but the first the simple fact of the 
marriage 1 . 

Even the violent bodily abstraction of the wife, as in 
the case of Helen, does no more than destroy the 
marriage for the time. When she is recovered, she 
resumes her domestic place. There is no such thing 
as a formal and final dissolution of a marriage, except 
by death. In the narrative, and by the Trojans, as 
well as by herself, Helen is called the wife of Paris; 
yet we never find this acknowledgment in the mouth 
of a Greek. Nay, Hector even calls Helen the wife of 
Menelaos 2 : but this may mean the past wife. Mene- 
laos never treats what, had occurred as setting him free 
from his obligations to Helen. And the long resistance 
of Penelope, presented to us in the Odyssey as a central 
object of our interest and admiration, could not have 
been chosen for this purpose by the poet, unless it had 
been in conformity with the actual Greek idea of a 
genuine and lofty virtue. 

Concubinage is practised by some few, and as far as 
we are informed only by few, of the Greek chieftains 
before Troy: yet this also is single. Of actual domestic 
concubinage we have no example. But Agamemnon 
threatens to take Briseis home with him 3 . This, how- 
ever, is done under angry excitement. In the Assembly, 
he thinks it necessary to give the reason of a proceeding, 
which he apparently perceived would require a justi- 
fication; and it is, that he prefers her in all respects 
to Clutaimnestra. But we have no trace, in the 
Return, of any chiefs carrying a concubine home 
with him. The wife of Amuntor adopted an extreme 
measure to prevent her husband from falling into a 

1 Od. i. 36. 3 n>iiii 53> 3 Ilit 29j II3< 



408 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

lawless connection 1 ; and Laertes, from an appre- 
hension of conjugal trouble, respected the maidenhood 
of his young bondwoman 2 . These instances, if they 
show that the man was not exempt from passion, 
bear very emphatic testimony to the position of the 
wife. 

The relations of youth and maiden generally are 
indicated with extreme beauty and tenderness in the 
Iliad 3 ; and those of the unmarried woman to a suitor, 
or probable spouse, are so pourtrayed, in the case of the 
incomparable Nausicaa, as to show a delicacy and 
freedom that no period of history or state of manners 
can surpass 4 . On her return home, Alkinoos, far from 
reproving her, thinks she should have shown more 
forwardness to entertain the shipwrecked stranger. 
We often hear of a parent, who gives or promises a 
daughter in marriage: but like expressions 5 are applied 
to sons. The very fact that the profligate and violent 
Suitors always confine themselves to a moral pressure, 
and profess to submit to the choice of Penelope, is of 
itself a probable witness to the recognised free-agency 
of the woman of the period. 

In that early state of society we hear of no such 
personage as an elderly bachelor or spinster. Nor, 
within due limits of age, could there, I presume, be a 
prolonged widowhood. The apparent connection of 
Helen with Deiphobos 6 , after the death of Paris, should 
probably be read in the light of Trojan usage. But 
whenever Penelope, or others in her name, contemplate 
the death of Odysseus,, and her consequent release, that 

1 II. ix. 51. 2 Od. i. 433. 

3 II. xviii. 567, 593; xxii. 127, 128. 4 Od. vi. 275-288. 

5 II. ix. 394. Od. iv. 10. 6 Od. iv. 276. 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 409 

change is always treated as the immediate preface to 
another crisis, in the choice of a second husband. 

Marriage, in Homer, is the very pivot of life. War 
is the deadly enemy of woman. On the capture of a 
city, her lot is exile, and the conqueror's bed. The 
familiarity of this idea renders it remarkable that we 
should not hear much more than we do hear of con- 
cubinage among the Greeks of Homer. Of professional 
prostitution, we have no trace at all. 

As the restraints imposed upon marriage are in 
general among the proofs of its high estimation, I 
proceed to observe that the Greeks regarded incest 
with horror, even when, as in the instance of Oidipous 
and Epicaste, it was involuntary. Passing on from 
extreme cases, we may observe, that the connection 
of Phoenix with a woman at once presented an insur- 
mountable bar to the unlawful passion of his father for 
the same person. It appears however probable, though 
not certain, that Diomed was married to his mother's 
sister 1 . In Scherie, the king Alkinoos had his niece 
for his wife 2 : but this is in the Phoenician circle. In 
Troy, Iphidamas marries the sister of his mother 3 . 

It is observed that, in the classical period, the law of 
incest in Greece, instead of being tightened, was re- 
laxed 4 . The older sentiment about it is the more 
remarkable, because of the extreme looseness of the 
code applied to supernatural beings 5 . 

A series of words for the different relationships by 
affinity, includes the word einater for the husband's 
brother's wife, to which we have no correlative in 

1 II. iv. 121. 2 Od. vii. 65, 66. 3 II. xi. 220-226. 

* Friedreich's Realien, iii. 2. 

5 II. iv. 441 ; xvi. 432. Od. x. 2. 



I 



4IO JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

English j and the terms, in which these relationships 
are spoken of, testify to the definiteness and solidity of 
the marriage bond. 

We have a single case of a woman who attempts 
the breach of her own marriage-vow. It is Anteia, 
the wife of Proitos ; but the family was Phoenician. 

Thus, then, we have in the Poems a picture of Greek 
marriage as to its unity, freedom, perpetuity ; as to the 
restraints upon it, and as to the manner in which 
breaches of it, and substitutes for it, were regarded. 
This picture, so striking in itself, becomes yet more so 
by comparison with Eastern manners, even as they 
were exhibited in the Hebrew race. It is also in 
glaring and painful contrast with the lowered estimate 
of woman among the Greeks of the classical period, 
and with their loathsome immorality. 

More important, however, than any particulars is 
the general tone of the intercourse between husband 
and wife. It is thoroughly natural : full of warmth, 
dignity, reciprocal deference, and substantial, if not 
conventional, delicacy. The fulness of moral and in- 
telligent being is alike complete, and alike acknow- 
ledged, on the one side and on the other. Nor is this 
description confined to the scenes properly Hellenic. 
It embraces the conversation of Hector with Andro- 
mache, and is nowhere more applicable than to the 
whole character and demeanour of Nausicaa — delinea- 
tions probably due rather to the Hellenic experience 
of the Poet, than to any minute observation either of 
Phoenician or of Trojan manners. Of rude manners 
to a woman there is not a real instance in the Poems. 
And to this circumstance we may add its true cor- 
relative, that the women of Homer are truly and pro- 



X.] ETHICS OF THE HEROIC AGE. 41 1 

foundly feminine. As to the intensity of conjugal love, 
it has never passed the climax which it reaches in 
Odysseus and Penelope. 

Presents were usually brought by the bridegroom ; 
dowries sometimes given with the bride. With a wife 
returning in widowhood to the parental home, the dowry 
returned also ] . On the other hand it would appear, 
from the Lay of the Net, that a fine was imposed upon 
the detected adulterer 2 , as well as on the manslayer. In 
some instances, personal and mental gifts serve in lieu 
of possessions, as recommendations in suing for a wife. 

Lastly, with respect to the employments of women. 

It appears to be at least open to question whether 
they were not capable of political sovereignty 3 . The 
suggestion of the text seems to be that Chloris was 
queen in Pulos when Neleus married her ; and the 
mention of Hupsipule with Jason is best accounted 
for by supposing, conformably to tradition, that she 
reigned in Lemnos 4 . On the departure of Agamemnon 
Clutaimnestra was left in charge, with the Bard as an 
adviser 5 ; and in Ithaca Penelope had a similar regency, 
apparently with the aid of Mentor 6 . 

Priesthood appears not to have existed among the 
Hellenes of the Homeric age ; but in Troas, where we 
find it, a woman was priestess of Athene. This was 
Theano, the wife of Antenor ; and she is said to have 
been appointed to her office by the Trojans. The 
seizure of Marpessa, or Alcuone, by Apollo, may have 
had reference to some religious ministry at Delphi. 

1 Od. ii. 132. 2 Od. viii. 329. 

3 II. vii. 468, 469. Od. xl 281-285. 

* II. vii. 469. 5 Od. iii. 263 268. 

6 Od. ii. 225-227; xix. 317 ; xx. 129-133. II. vi. 297-300. 



412 JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



The domestic employments of women are pretty 
clearly indicated in the descriptions of the Palaces of 
Kirke and of Odysseus. The outdoor offices were 
performed in Ithaca by men, who likewise prepared the 
firewood, killed, cut up, and carved the animals, and 
carried to the farm the manure that accumulated about 
the house. The Suitors also had male personal at- 
tendants. The women performed the indoor operations 
generally, including the fetching of water and the 
grinding of flour. 

Another employment discharged by women has given 
rise to misunderstanding; namely, their waiting on 
men for purposes connected with the bath. Damsels 
of the highest rank performed this duty for strangers. 
But the delicacy of the early Greeks, with regard to 
any undue exposure of the person *, was extreme ; and, 
though they may have differed from our merely con- 
ventional usages, it cannot be imagined that they 
departed from propriety in a point where a people far 
less scrupulous would have respected it. The error has 
lain principally in failure to observe that in the words 
used for washing, bathing, and anointing, the actual 
operation is described by the middle voice 2 , and the 
words louo, chrio, nipt 6, in the active, in general j 
signify supplying another person with the means of 
performing these offices for himself 3 . The same rule 
I believe to hold good with respect to the word which 
describes dressing after the bath (ball 6). 

1 II. ii. 260-264. 

2 So Wakefield. See II. x. 572-577 ; Od. vi. 96, 219, 220, 
et alibi. 

3 Od. vi. 210, 218, 222 ; vii. 296. Even Od. x. 361 need not 
be an exception. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Polity of the Heroic Age, 

The Poems of Homer are the seed-plot of what is 
best and soundest in the Greek politics of the historic 
period. Nor are we, the moderns, and, as I think, the 
British in particular, without a special relation to the 
subject. In part we owe to these ancient societies a 
debt. In part we may trace with reasonable pleasure 
an original similitude between the Homeric picture 
and the best ideas of our European and our British 
ancestry. What are those ideas ? Among the soundest 
of them we reckon the power of opinion and persuasion 
as opposed to force ; the sense of responsibility in 
governing men ; the hatred, not only of tyranny, but 
of all unlimited power ; the love and the habit of public 
in preference to secret action ; the reconciliation and 
harmony between the spirit of freedom on the one 
hand, the spirit of order and reverence on the other ; 
and a practical belief in right as relative, and in duty 
as reciprocal. Out of these elements, whether in an- 
cient or in modern times, great governments have been 
made. The Homeric Poems exhibit them all, if not 
in methodical development, yet in vigorous life. 



4I4 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Even war required a basis of right, perhaps rudely 
defined j and retribution a corpus delicti. Hence the 
readiness with which the offer of Paris 1 to decide the 
war by single combat is accepted ; and hence it may 
be that when Agamemnon anticipates the death of 
Menelaos from his wound, he judges also that, on that 
event, the army will return home. 

Personal reverence for sovereigns is undoubtedly 
a powerful principle in the "governments of the heroic 
age. There is for them a kind of divinity that doth 
c hedge a king. 5 Odysseus, wishing to arrest the sudden 
impulse of the army to return, furnishes himself with 
the famed Sceptre of Agamemnon, as a token of his 
title to be heard. This principle, which has survived 
almost every modification of political forms, could not 
but be lively at a period when probably no great num- 
ber of generations had passed since the exchange of 
nomad for settled life. For society, in the nomad 
stage, has something of the organization of the army ; 
and it is still either in view or in actual experience of 
the time when the family, forming itself around its 
head, had not yet grown into the tribe ; much less the 
tribe into the people. 

But, while this reverence existed under all social 
forms, the characteristic difference of the Homeric 
states is to be found in the qualifications by which 
on every side it was hindered from passing into excess. 
The monarch was controlled by the princes or chiefs 
assembled in the council (fiovXrj) ; an institution which 
the Odyssey mentions in Scherie, and the Iliad (in- 
formally) in Troy - y so that we must presume it to have 
been in the view of the Greeks not a merely local 
1 II. iii. 96-112. 



XI 



.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 415 



institution, but a prime element of human society. 
The mass, however, of the free citizens were also 
called together in the Agore, or Assembly, to consider 
any matter of cardinal importance ; and appeal was 
made to their reason in speeches which, for aptitude 
and force, to this day extort the admiration, and 
perhaps defy the rivalry, of the moderns. 

It is upon a just balance of forces that good govern- 
ment now mainly depends. In the Homeric age, there 
were no detailed or even defined provisions to secure this 
balance. Even the name of law (nomos) is unknown, 
though the name of public right (them is) is familiar 
and revered. Into the Greek Constitutions, described by 
Aristotle, a multitude of expedients for that purpose 
had been introduced by human ingenuity. Yet those 
constitutions were subject to frequent and most violent 
changes, usually attended by the absolute ejectment of 
the defeated party from house and field. And even 
when not under disturbance they commonly exhibited 
a strong bias towards excess in one quarter or another. 
To the Troic period, too, revolutions were not un- 
known. But the idea of government, which then pre- 
vailed, was perhaps both more strongly fortified by 
religious reverence, and likewise better founded in 
reciprocal duty, than that of later times. The separa- 
tion and conflict of interests between the different 
parts of the community had not become a familiar 
idea ; particular classes did not plot against the whole ; 
we hear little of the tyranny of kings, or the insubordi- 
nation of subjects. A worse era was about to follow. 
As in the case of the Crusades, so during the War of 
Troy, the absence of the rulers prepared the way for 
social convulsion. And Hesiod, living at a time later 



4r6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



CHAP. 



probably by some generations, looks back from his iron 
age with an admiring envy on the heroic period. 

c The early monarchies/ says Thucydides, c enjoyed 
specified 1 prerogatives/ and Aristotle assures us that 
they were monarchies 2 upon terms, and depended on 
a voluntary allegiance. The threefold function of the 
King among the Hellenes was (a) chiefly perhaps, though 
not exclusively, to administer justice 3 between man 
and man ; (b) to command the army, and (c) to conduct 
the rites of religion. Sometimes the sovereignty was 
local, or subaltern • sometimes, as perhaps in the case of 
Minos 4 and of Priam, and even of Peleus, but clearly 
and broadly in that of Agamemnon 5 , it was a suzerainty 
over other Kings and princes, as well as a direct do- 
minion over territory specially appropriated, and perhaps 
also over an unclaimed residue of minor settlements 
and communities. Besides the towns, which supplied 
Agamemnon with his division of the army, he claimed 
to dispose of the sovereignty of other towns, which lay 
in the south-west of the Peloponnesos 6 . 

The Homeric Kings, however, constitute in the Iliad 
a class by themselves. The greater part of the chiefs 
do not bear the title of Basil eus, but had probably 
that of anax, prince, or lord. Some of these were like 
Phoinix under Peleus ; but most of them in no other 
subordination than to Agamemnon. The only duty to 
the suzerain of which we hear is that of military 
service. His superior rank 7 is acknowledged; so that 
both he, and apparently Menelaos, on account of his 

1 i. 13. 2 Arist. Pol. iii. 14, i5,ver. 10. 3 II. ii. 204-206. 
4 Thucydides, i. 4, says that Minos appointed his sons to be 
local or deputed Governors. 

II. ix. 483; xxiii. 25-90. 6 II. ix. 149-153. 7 II. i. 186. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE, 41J 

relationship, are termed ' more kingly v than the other 
Kings. These gradations in the order may perhaps be 
compared to those of a modern Peerage or Noblesse. 

The King, as such, stands in a special relation to 
deity. The epithet theios, divine, is only applied to 
such among the living as have this relation. The King 
is also Diotrephes, or reared by Zeus, and Diogenes, or 
born of Zeus ; and these titles are given rarely below 
the kingly order even to a prince or ruler, if of inferior 
degree or eminence. It is expressly declared that 
Kings derive the right to rule 2 from Zeus, from whom 
descended, by successive deliveries, the sceptre of 
Agamemnon. In the Greek army the Kings alone 
seem to constitute the council of the Generalissimo. 
Scarcely on any occasion does a ruler of the second 
order appear there. The Kings are called Basilees, or 
Gerontes (elders), or perhaps Koiranoi; but the 
leaders at large are Archoi, or Hegemones, or 
(apLVTrjes) the aristocracy. 

In the Catalogue, the command of some of the di- 
visions is held as it were in commission ; or, in other 
words, rests with two or more persons jointly and 
severally, on a footing of parity between themselves. 
But wherever there is a King, he either appears alone, 
in his capacity of General, as Agamemnon, Menelaos, 
Odysseus, Nestor, Achilles, the greater and the lesser 
Ajax ; or with other leaders who are distinctly under 
him, as Diomed 3 and Idomeneus 4 . These nine persons 

1 II. ix. 160; x. 239. 2 II. ii. 101, 205. 3 II. ii. 563-566. 
' 4 The Catalogue, Ii. ii. 645-652, might leave doubtful the po- 
sition of Meriones ; but it is fixed by the terms 6epaira>v and 
o7raa)t>, applied to him in II. x. 58, xxiii. 113, et alibi j which, 
though perhaps more than Squire, means less than Colleague. 

E e 



41 8 JUVENTUS MtJNDI. [CHAP. 

are the only undeniable Kings of the Iliad, as may ap- 
pear from comparing together II. ii. 404-409, II. xix. 
309-311, and from the transactions of II. x. 34-197. 
Particular phrases or passages might raise the question 
whether four others, Meges, Eurupulos, Patroclos, and 
Phioinix, were not viewed by Homer as being also 
Kings. Probably his idea of the class was not so 
definite as ours; but on the whole the line, which 
excludes these and all the other chiefs from the kingly 
rank, is drawn with considerable clearness. The King, 
as viewed in the Iliad, must be a person combining 
three conditions: first, he is subordinate to none but 
Agamemnon ; secondly, he has in all cases marked 
personal vigour and prowess ; thirdly, if his dominions 
are small, he must either be of surpassing strength of 
body at least, like the Telamonian Ajax, or of vast 
powers of mind as well as limb, like Odysseus. 

Among the bodily qualities of the Kings, one is 
personal beauty. This attaches peculiarly to the Trojan 
royal family, and it is recorded even of the aged Priam 
in his grief 1 . At the head of all stands Achilles. 
Odysseus has this endowment, though in a less marked 
degree. Ajax, in the Odyssey, appears to compete with 
Nireus, in the Iliad, for the second place. It is never 
predicated individually, 1 think, of any single man 
below the princely station, although when the crew of 
Odysseus were re-transformed, at Aiaie, into human 
shape, they are collectively said to have been by far 
larger and more beautiful than before 2 . 

Personal vigour is also a condition, not only of as- 
suming, but almost of continuing in, the exercise of 

1 II. xxiv. 631. 2 Od. x. 396. 



XT.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 419 

sovereignty 1 . Laertes quitted his throne at a time 
anterior to the departure of Odysseus for the war, long 
before the period of decrepitude 2 , and probably when 
his activity had but begun to diminish. Achilles, in 
the Shades 3 , inquires whether Peleus still occupies the 
throne, or has retired from it on account of his years. 
Nestor, indeed, yet occupies the royal seat ; but" perhaps 
it is on account of his notable talents, combined with 
the greenness of his old age. The word aizeos, which 
signifies a man in his full strength, when joined with 
Diotrephes, or royal, is applied to princes as a class, 
and thus testifies to the custom I have described 4 . 
Telemachos was the proper heir to his father's throne 5 ; 
but he was only coming to, though close upon, full age, 
and he had not yet assumed its privileges at the point 
where the action of the Poem begins. 

Over and above the work of battle, the Prince is 
peerless in the Games. Of the eight contests of the 
Twenty-third Iliad, seven are conducted entirely by the 
Kings and chiefs. The exception is the boxing-match. 
And Epeios, the winner in this match, himself declares 6 
that he does not possess the gifts necessary for dis- 
tinction in battle ; an indication by the way, among 
many, of the immense value set by Homer upon skill 
as compared with mere strength 7 . The prizes, too, 
which are given in the boxing-match appear, when 
compared with the other rewards, to show the reputed 
inferiority of this accomplishment. 

So likewise with the gifts of music and song. 
Usually, of course, we look for them to the Bards. 

1 Grote, Hist. Greece, vol. ii. p. 87. 2 Od. xi. 174, 184. 

3 Od. xi. 495. * II. ii. 660. Comp. II. xvi. 716. 

5 Od. i. 386. 6 II. xxiii. 670. 7 Comp. II. xxiii. 315-318. 
e e 2, 



420 / JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Upon the Shield, in the procession of youths and 
maidens who bear the grapes from the vineyard, a boy 
attends them to play and sing, probably because it did 
not comport with the dignity of the Bard to exercise his 
art while in bodily motion ; for presently we come to 
another scene, where he plays, without moving, to the 
dancers *. There are but two certain indications of (so 
to speak) amateur song and playing. The lyre which 
Achilles used was among the spoils of the city of 
Eetion, and may possibly have belonged to that King 
himself 2 . On this lyre Achilles himself played during 
his retirement. And our other musician is Paris 3 . 

But the kingly character in Homer is also all-com- 
prehensive; and it sometimes embraces even the manual 
employments of honourable industry. Odysseus, in the 
Island of Calypso 4 , is a wood-cutter and ship-builder: 
Odysseus on his throne was the carpenter and artisan 
of his own bed 5 , so elaborately wrought: Odysseus, in 
disguise, challenges Eurumachos the Suitor to try which 
of them would soonest mow a meadow 6 , and which 
drive the straightest furrow down a four-acre field. 

Such were the corporal accomplishments of the 
Homeric King. He was also, in the exercise of higher 
faculties, judge, General, and Priest. In addition to 
all these, and as binding them all together, he was em- 
phatically a gentleman. In Agamemnon, indeed, there 
is a half-sordid vein, which mars the higher type; 
though he corresponds in general to the eulogy of 
Helen 7 , as a good King and a valiant soldier. Nestor, 
Diomed, Menelaos, are markedly gentlemen in their 

1 II. xviii. 569, 604. 2 II. ix. 186-188. 3 II. iii. 54. 

4 Od. v. 243, 261. 5 Od. xxiii. 195-201. 

6 Od. xviii. 366-375. 7 II. iii. 179. 



XI 



,] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. ^%\ 



demeanour. The character of Odysseus, caricatured 
and debased by the later tradition, abounds in Homer 
with similar notes. Quick in the sense of undeserved 
reproof from his chief, he appeals only to the con- 
futation which his conduct in the field will supply 1 . 
When grossly insulted by Eurualos, his stern and 
masterful rebuke is so justly measured as to excite the 
sympathy of strangers 2 . But the best exhibition of the 
profound refinement inhering in the character of 
Odysseus is, perhaps, afforded by the scene in which 
he first appears before Nausicaa 3 , after his escape from 
the devouring waters. 

It is, however, in Achilles that courtesy reaches to 
its acme. In the First Iliad, he hails with a genial 
kindness the heralds who came on the odious errand of 
enforcing the removal of Briseis, and he at once re- 
assures them by acquitting them of blame 4 , though as 

we know 

'The messenger of evil tidings 
Hath but a losing office.' 

In the Ninth Book, while still in the Wrath, we find 
him bidding the envoys of Agamemnon a hearty wel- 
come. In both cases he anticipates the new comers, 
with a speech, of which the promptitude is itself a 
delicate stroke of the best manners. The most refined, 
however, of his attentions is perhaps that shown to 
Agamemnon, after the reconciliation, on the occasion 
of the Games. It was difficult to exclude the chief 
King from the sport of Kings ; inadmissible to let him 
be worsted ; impossible either to make him conquer 
those who were his superiors in strength, or to place 

1 II. iv. 349-355. 2 Od. viii. 165, 396. 3 Od. vi. 115 seqq. 
4 II. i. 334. 



422 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

him in competition with secondary persons. Achilles 
avoids all thefe difficulties by proposing a ninth, or 
supernumerary match, with the sling ; and then at once 
presenting the prize to Agamemnon with the observa- 
tion that, as his excellence is known to be paramount, 
there need be no actual trial 1 . 

Yet these great chiefs, so strong in every form of 
power, bravery, and skill, can upon occasion weep like a 
woman or a child. A list of the passages, in which the 
tears of heroes flow, would probably by its length cause 
astonishment even to those who are aware that a sus- 
ceptible temperament prompted them, and that a false 
shame did not forbid them, thus to give vent to their 
emotions 2 . Every one of them, unless it be the aged Nes- 
tor, would be included : we should find there even Aga- 
memnon, whom we may probably consider as the prince 
least richly furnished in this department of our nature. 

Thus far we have spoken mainly of the persons. 
The office, which these persons bore, was hereditary, 
in the line of the eldest son. Yet though the practice 
prevailed, the definition was, in this and in other cases, 
not so sharp as ours. Menelaos, the brother of Aga- 
memnon, partakes in a certain limited degree of his 
dignity : is specially solicited, with him, by the priest 
Chruses 3 ; receives, jointly with him, the presents 
offered by Euneos 4 for leave to trade with the army ; 
and is held more royal than the other chieftains 5 . 
Probably when Thuestes succeeded Atreus, it was on 
account of the childhood of Agamemnon, which pre- 
vented his fulfilling the conditions of strength and 
vigour necessary for holding the monarchy. 

■•* II. xxiii. 884-897. 2 Comp. Juv. Sat. xv. 131-133. 
3 II. i. 16. * II. vii. 470. 5 II. x. 32 and 239. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 423 

The case of Telemachos supplies us with an express 
declaration of the title of the son to succeed his father 1 . 
But Antinoos the Suitor, at a time when Odysseus was 
supposed to be dead, states his hope that Zeus will 
never make the youth king of Ithaca. The answer is 
far from claiming that unconditional right to the 
throne of the islands, which it asserts to the estates 
of Odysseus 2 ; and leaves room for the supposition, that 
the succession was liable to be more or less affected by 
personal qualifications, and by the assent or dissent of 
the nobles, or even of the community. Even at this 
time, however, Telemachos assumed in the Assembly 
the seat of his father. 

Telemachos, indeed, is an only son. But, in the 
case of the Pelopids, Agamemnon appears to succeed 
to the paternal throne, and Menelaos to govern Sparta 
in right of his wife. Of the two brothers, Protesilaos 
and Podarkes, in the Catalogue, the former, who is the 
elder, commands the force from Phulake and its sister 
towns 3 . He was, however, we are expressly told, 
braver, as well as older. The position of Antilochos 
in the Iliad as the eldest son of Nestor, and of Thrasu- 
medes, after his death, in the Odyssey, appear to be 
sufficiently marked 4 . In four cases of the Catalogue, 
pairs of brothers are named as in command, without 
any distinction formally drawn between them. 

The Olympian arrangements bear, perhaps, the most 
emphatic testimony to the higher dignity and authority 
of the elder brother. For it is only in that capacity, 
that the superiority of Zeus is confessed by his juniors-. 

1 Od. i. 387. 2 Od. i. 396. 

3 II, ii, 695-708. * Od. iii. 402, 439-446. 

5 II, xv, 204-207. Od. xiii. 141. 



424 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

They are not, however, excluded from inheritance ; and 
the respective provinces are taken by lot. 

On the whole, we seem to have the custom or law of 
primogeniture sufficiently, but not over-sharply, defined. 

The Homeric King, decked out with attributes 
almost ideal, appears before us, so far as Greece is 
concerned, in not a threefold only, but a fourfold, 
character- besides being Priest, Judge, and General, 
he is also, as King, a great Proprietor. 

Priesthood is a function touching the daily course of 
life. Besides the solemn and public sacrifices, the 
meat of each meal is an offering; the word c to sacrifice/ 
hiereuein is used as meaning c to kill;' the animal 
ready to be killed is hiereion, a sacrifice. Yet there 
appears to be no professional priest among the Hellenes. 
We hear of many priests in the Poems : but of none of 
them can we positively assert that they were Greek. 
The priest is referred to, together with the prophet and 
dream-teller, in the first Assembly of the Iliad : but the 
Greeks are there 1 in a land of priests ; and as Achilles 
plainly points to the prophet Calchas, who immediately 
afterwards rises to speak, so it is probable that he may 
point to the priest Chruses, who had already visited the 
camp. Among the chief professions of a Greek com- 
munity, enumerated in the Odyssey 2 , the priest does not 
appear. Though priests are wanting, prophets are not ; 
and in this important passage, the class of prophets is 
the first named. One passage only speaks of priests 
within the local limits of Greece 3 : it refers to a gene- 
ration before the War ; and it is quite possible that, both 
then and subsequently, there may have been priests in 
Greece of Pelasgian institution. Wherever there was a 

1 II. i. 62. 2 Od. xvii. 385. 3 II. ix. 575. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 425 

t erne n os, or glebe, probably there was a priest to 
live upon the proceeds. But the only sacred glebes 
of which we hear in Greece are (I think) the glebes of 
Spercheios and of Demeter 1 , both of them old Pelasgian 
deities. 

In conformity with this view, we find that among 
the Hellenes, in the public and solemn sacrifices, the 
priestly office is performed by the King. Moreover, 
the assistants are termed neoi 2 , young men. This 
supports a conjecture suggested to me by the resem- 
blance of the words, that hieros and geron have been 
originally identical in root. In Greece down to the 
present day the monk is called calo-gero (the French 
caloyer). It was to the Father, as such, that in the 
origin of society the offices both of King and Priest 
generally accrued. To the Father, in the time of 
Homer, the ordinary consecration or offering of the 
meal appertains, as he presides at the domestic 
board. 

The office of the Judge seems to be, more than any 
other, proper to the King. It probably constituted his 
only official employment which was at once permanent 
(that of war being occasional), and of a nature 3 to 
weigh upon the mind. But it should be understood 
as including all deliberative work. On the Shield 4 , 
the trial of a cause is conducted by the Elders ; perhaps 
in the character of delegates. Causes must have been 
conducted by natural equity, or by what in Ireland was 
called Brehon, that is judge-made, law. Probably 
custom had already established some rules with respect 

1 II. xxiii. 148 ; ii. 696. 2 II. i. 463. Od. iii. 460. 

3 II. i. 237; ii. 204; ix. 98; xvi. 386. * II. xviii. 506. 



426 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

to fines for homicide and adultery, if not for other 
offences. 

The duty of the King as General is best exhibited 
by the whole plan of the Iliad. Here the King, if in 
full vigour, assumes the captain's office as a matter of 
course, and quits his house and throne to discharge it. 
Peleus 1 , the father of Achilles, remains at home, because 
he is disabled by old age. Nestor, retaining more of his 
bodily vigour, goes to war, but acts in the camp chiefly 
as a counsellor, and at no time actually handles arms. 

Never has the idea of regal duty and responsibility, 
both in general and with respect to war in particular, 
been more nobly set forth than in the speech of Sarpe- 
don to Glaucos 2 , in the Twelfth Iliad ; before the high- 
souled speaker proceeded to execute what was, on the 
Trojan side, by far the greatest exploit of the War. 

Lastly. In consideration of the duties and burdens 
of his office, the King was a great Proprietor. A 
domain 3 (temenos) was set apart for him out of 
the common stock of territory (from temnein, to 
cut, to carve out). The class had apparently two other 
sources of revenue. They received presents from 
merchants, for leave to trade; of which we find an 
example also in the Book of Genesis 4 . The practice 
of offering such gifts is probably to be regarded as the 
germ of Customs-duties, or taxes on the import and 
export of goods. The other was from fees on the 
administration of justice 5 . Of these, we have the 

1 II. xxiv. 487. Od. xi. 497. 2 II. xii. 310-328. 

3 II. xii. 313 ; vi. 194 ; ix. 574 ; xx. 184. Od. vi. 293 ; xi. 184; 
xvii. 299. 

4 xliii. 11. II. vii. 467-475. Od.vii. 8-11. 
6 II. ix. 155. 






XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 42? 

earliest rudiment represented on the Shield; where 
lay two talents of gold, to be awarded to the judge 
whose sentence in the cause should be most approved 1 . 
In time of war, too, Agamemnon was charged with 
appropriating a very large share of the prizes to 
himself 2 . 

But the King was expected to be liberal in his 
official entertainments, so to call them, to his chiefs 
and nobles, over and above the general duty of hospi- 
tality 3 . This, probably, was the excuse of the Suitors 
for devouring the substance of Odysseus. It appears, 
at any rate, that friends of the royal house frequented 
the table at the palace, as well as its enemies, though 
perhaps not so constantly 4 . 

The King might also obtain private property. 
Laertes lived, in his old age, on an estate thus ac- 
quired 5 . And, in the First Odyssey, we find a dis- 
tinction between the house of Odysseus with the lands 
about it, to which Telemachos was to succeed as of 
right, and the kingly dignity with whatever might 
attach to it 6 . 

Such was the position of the King. Agamemnon, 
however, was a King of Kings : more or less resembling 
what we now call a Suzerain, or the highest feudal supe- 
rior of the middle age. Thucydides is of opinion that the 
fear of him 7 had more to do than good will, or than the 
oath of Tundareus, in the formation of the confederacy 
which undertook the war of Troy. National sentiment, 
and the hope of booty, might also contribute powerfully 
to this extraordinary effort. We have, however, no 

1 II. xviii. 508. 2 II. ix. 333. 3 II. ix. 70. Od. vii. 49, 108. 
* Od. xvii. 68. 5 Od. xxiv. 206. 

6 Od. i. 397, 402. .7 i. 9. 






428 • JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

means of tracing in the Poems any interference of the 
Suzerain, beyond his own proper dominions, in the 
ordinary government of the country ; or any duty owed 
to him, except in war. 

The general reverence for rank and station, the safe- 
guard of publicity, and the influence of persuasion, are 
the usual and sufficient instruments for governing the 
army, even as they governed the civil societies, of 
Greece. The few words quoted by Aristotle 1 from 
some text of the Iliad which was current in his day and 
place, signifying that Agamemnon had a right of life and 
death, cannot reasonably, without a context, be made 
to convey a theory of military discipline out of harmony 
with the tone and analogies of the poem, and belonging 
to the definite ideas of the present rather than to the 
free life of the older time. Moreover, as these words 
(nap yap e/uot Oavaros) afterwards disappeared from the 
text of the Poem, the most natural inference seems to 
be that they were not finally approved as genuine. 

It is in the Assemblies, that the great transactions of 
the army are decided. There, arises the quarrel with 
Achilles; there, the tumultuary impulse homewards; 
there, that impulse having been checked, it is deli- 
berately resolved to see what can be done by the 
strong hand against Troy. There it is settled to ask 
a truce for burials, and to erect the rampart. There 
the second proposition of Agamemnon to return to 
Greece is made, and is summarily overruled 2 . There 
the Council is appointed to sit, which despatches the 
abortive mission to Achilles. There Agamemnon con- 
fesses and laments his fault, and the reconciliation with 
the great chief is sealed. There, finally, arises the 
1 Aristot. Pol. iii. 14. 15. 2 H» ix - 26-28, 50. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 4^9 



dissension of the two sons of Atreus, after the fall of 

Troy 1 . 

: The ranks traceable in the army are : 

i. The Kings: Basileis or Koiranoi. 

2. The Leaders under the rank of King. 

3. The officers of minor command. 

Both these last come under the name of hege- 
mones. The ships had each her kubernetes or 
pilot, who probably commanded as well as steered : and 
there were a number of tamiai, or stewards, whom 
we may regard as the commissariat of that day 2 . 

The privates of the army are called by the names of 
1 a o s, the people ; demos, the community ; and 
pie thus, the multitude. But no notice is taken, 
throughout the Poem, of the exploits of any soldi e 
below the rank of a high officer. Still, all attend the 
Assemblies. On the whole, the Greek host is not so 
much an army, as a community in arms. 

On the nature of the arms employed by the bulk 
of the force, it is not easy to pronounce with con- 
fidence. There were heavy-armed, who fought with 
spear, sword, axe, and stone; javelin-men, who used a 
lighter dart; archers; and hippeis, those who fought 
from the chariot. Though the art of riding, in our 
sense of it, was known, it was not used in battle. 
One passage appears to speak of the Trojans as at- 
tacking with javelins and arrows, and of the Greeks 
as resisting with the weapons proper to the heavy- 
armed 3 ; another distinctly describes the first in the 
same manner 4 : and on the whole I judge that the 
Greek soldiery, with its solid march, were combatants, 

1 Od. iii. 139. 2 II. xix. 42-45. 

* II. xv. 707-712. * Od. xviii. 264. 



43° 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



[chap. 






in the main, using weapons of weight; the Trojans 
somewhat less so. Only the Trojans distinguish them- 
selves as archers, in the persons of Pandaros and Paris : 
but there were bowmen in the Greek army also \ 

Two modes of fighting were in use : the open battle 
of main force, without strategy or tactics, and liable to 
panic. The other was the lochos, or ambuscade. As 
a severer trial of nerve and moral fortitude, this latter 
was held in higher estimation, and was reserved to the 
chiefs 2 . We must not say that Achilles would have 
been inferior to any man in any act of martial skill 
or daring : but in the Poems, as they stand, Odysseus 
has been chosen as the prince of ambush 3 . 

The Council was composed of chief persons, who 
bore the name of gerontes 4 , or elders: a name which 
was probably in its origin personal, and had by degrees 
become, like that of Senator in later times, official. 
In the Council of the Army, Nestor is old, Idomeneus 
near upon old age: Odysseus might be called elderly, 
though still in the perfection of strength 5 . 

In the Second Book, the Boule or Council is sum- 
moned by Agamemnon, to prepare for the Assembly 6 . 
The same persons meet before the solemn sacrifice 7, 
without being called a Council. They meet again, 
as a Council, by appointment of the Assembly, in the 
Ninth Book 8 ; and send the Envoys to supplicate 
Achilles. In the Seventh Book, this body plans the truce 
and the rampart 9 . It is spoken of as an institution 



1 II. ii. 720; iii. 79. 

2 II. xviii. 509; xiii. 20, 276-286; i. 226. 

3 Od. iv. 277-288. 4 II. ii. 52. 

6 II. ii. 52. 7 II. ii. 404-408. 

9 II. vii. 344, 382. 



5 II. xxiii. 79] 
8 II. ix. 10, 8c 



XI 



,] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 43 1 



evidently familiar 1 . The disorganised society of Ithaca 
does not afford scope for a regular Council ; but a place 
is set apart for the elders in the Agore '-', and Odysseus 
in his youth had been sent on a mission by Laertes and 
his Council 3 . In Scherie, Nausicaa meets her father 4 
on his way to the Boule. The members of the Army- 
council contend freely in argument with Agamemnon ; 
and Nestor takes the lead in that body, and observes 
to Agamemnon that it is his duty to listen as well as 
to speak, and to adopt the plans of others when they 
are good 5 . This institution was one utterly at variance 
with anything like absolutism in the command. 

In the Homeric ideas upon Polity, perhaps the most 
remarkable of all is the distinction accorded to the 
power of speech. The voice and the sword are the 
twin powers, by which the Greek world is governed • 
and there is no precedency of rank between them. 
The power of public speech is essentially a power over 
large numbers ; and, wherever it prevails, it is the surest 
test of the presence of the spirit and practice of 
freedom. The world has repeatedly seen absolutism 
deck itself with the titles and mere forms of liberty, 
or seek shelter under its naked abstractions ; but from 
the use of free speech as the instrument of governing 
the people, it has always shrunk with an instinctive 
horror. The epithets and incidental passages with which 
Homer honours it, show much of his mind 6 . But the 
most emphatic testimony to its importance, and to the 
state of things which it betokens, is the free, signal, 
and varied excellence of the Homeric Speeches. 

1 Od. iii. 127. 2 Od. ii. 14. 3 Od. xxi. 51. 

* Od. vi. 53-55'. 5 II. ix. 100-102. 

6 II. i. 490; ix. 438-443. Od.xi. 510-516; ii. 150; viii. 170-173. 






432 JUVENTUS MUNDI, [CHAP. 

In the case of speakers, Homer is less chary of 
description than his wont : and he has exhibited to us 
in action too a great variety of manners. There is 
Thersites, glib, vain, and saucy K There is Telemachos, 
full of the gracious diffidence of youth, but commended 
by Nestor for a power and a tact of expression beyond 
his years 2 . Menelaos harangues with a laconic ease 3 . 
We have the Trojan elders, whose volubility, and their 
shrill thread of voice, Homer compares to the chirp of 
grasshoppers 4 . Nestor's tones of happy and benevolent 
egotism flow sweeter than a stream of honey 5 . Phoinix 
would, in unskilful hands, have been a pale reflex 
of Nestor's garrulity without his sagacity; but his 
speaking is redeemed by his profound and absorbing- 
affection for Achilles, which gives him as it were 
a different centre of gravity. Far above all these soars 
Odysseus, who when he first rises, with all his energies 
concentrated within him, seems to give no promise of 
display ; but when his deep voice issues from his chest, 
and his words drive like the flakes of winter snow, then, 
says the Poet, for mortal to compete with him is 
hopeless 6 . 

But yet there is another speaker who, when he rises 
to his noblest, seems as though he were scarcely mortal. 
Homer leaves the eloquence of Achilles to stand self- 
described. That chief modestly pronounces himself to 
be below Odysseus in the use of oratory. It seems to me 
that his speeches may challenge comparison with all that 
we find in Homer; and with all that the ebb and flow 
of three thousand years have added to our records of 
true human eloquence. Even here, Homer's resources 

1 II. ii. 212. 2 Od. iii. 23, 124. 3 II. iii. 213. 

4 II. iii. 150. 5 II. i. 243. 6 II. iii. 216-223. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 433 

are not exhausted. The decision of Diomed, the irre- 
solution of Agamemnon, the bluntness of Ajax, are all 
admirably marked in the series of speeches allotted to 
each respectively. Scarcely anywhere is mediocrity to 
be found ; and perhaps the greatest example on record 
of a perfectly simple nobleness is to be found in the 
speech of Sarpedon to Glaucos on the duties of Kings 1 . 

With respect to the power of speech, and the capacity 
of being moved by it, the performances of the Poet are 
truly the best picture of the age itself. Unlike great 
poems, great speeches cannot be made, except in an 
age and place where they are understood and felt. The 
work of the orator is cast in the mould offered him by 
the mind of his hearers. He cannot follow nor frame 
ideals at his own will; his choice is to be what his 
time will have him, what it requires in order to be 
moved by him, or not to be at all. 

If the power of oratory proper is remarkable in 
Homer, so likewise, and perhaps yet more, is the 
faculty of what in England is called c debate/ In 
Homer's discussions, every speech after the first is 
commonly a reply. It belongs not only to the sub- 
ject, but to the speech that went before; it exhibits, 
given the question and the aims of the speaker, the 
exact degree of ascent and descent, of expansion or 
contraction, which the circumstances of the case, in 
the state up to which they were brought by the preced- 
ing address, may require. The debate in the Assembly 
of the First Book, and that in the Encampment of 
Achilles 2 , are, as oratorical structures, complete and 
consummate. 

A people cannot act in its corporate capacity without 
1 II. xii. 310-328. 2 II. ix. 225-655. 

Ff 






434 JUVENTUS MUND1. [CHAP. 

intermission ; and the King is the standing representa- 
tive of the community. But though he be the pivot of 
its functional and administrative activity, the Agore, 
or Assembly, is the centre of its life and vital motion. 
The greatest ultimate power possessed by the King is 
that of exercising an influence upon his subjects, there 
gathered into one focus, through the combined medium 
of their reverence for his person, and of his powers of 
persuasion. There is no decision by numbers; the 
doctrine of majorities is an invention, an expedient, of 
a more advanced social development. In Olympos, 
a minority of influential gods carry the day against 
the majority, and against their head, in the great 
matter of the Trojan war. 

The interference of Thersites in the Debate of 
the Second Iliad, and his attempt to bring the As- 
sembly back to the impulse of returning home, were 
followed by sharp corporal chastisement, and by the 
menace of the last degree of personal disgrace. But 
the very attempt to interfere by suggesting such auda- 
cious proposals, and these from a person so contempt- 
ible, may perhaps be taken as an indication that freedom 
of debate generally prevailed. 

In one of the scenes represented on the Shield of 
Achilles, new evidence is afforded us, that the people 
took a real part in the conduct of affairs. An Assembly 
is sitting. A criminal suit is in progress. The parties 
plead on either side, and challenge a decision ; and the 
people, taking part some one way and some the other, 
encourage them by cheering. The heralds keep order, 
and stay the interruptions when the time arrives for 
the judges to speak \ This applause of itself asserts 
1 II. xviii. 502. Cf. ii. 211. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 435 

the recognised interest and participation of the people ; 
for it contributes both to the decision, and to the spirit 
and efficacy of the means of persuasion, by which that 
decision is to be influenced. Not only so ; but it seems 
to have been by popular vote that the two talents were 
to be awarded, which lay on the floor, and were to be 
given to the Elder who might pronounce the soundest 
judgment 1 . Finally, in the Assembly of the Seventh 
Iliad, Idaios arrives from Troy with an offer to restore 
the stolen property, but not Helen herself. Diomed 
repudiates it, and his opinion is echoed back in the 
cheers of the army. Agamemnon then addresses him- 
self to the herald, c Idaios, you hear the sense of the 
Achaians, how they answer you; and I think with 
them.' Thus the acclamation was also the vote 2 . 

That which we do not find in Homer is, the submis- 
sion of the minority to the majority in any public or 
deliberative meeting. This without doubt is an expe- 
dient of much later date. But where difference of 
opinion prevails, the Assembly breaks into opposing 
factions. So it was in the drunken Assembly mentioned 
in the Odyssey 3 ; and the minority which then set sail 
was afterwards again divided 4 . In like manner, of the 
Ithacan Assembly in the Twenty-fourth Odyssey, the 
majority determined on neutrality, but the minority 
took arms. And, throughout the Voyages, we see how 
freely the crews of Odysseus both spoke and acted, 
when they thought fit, in opposition to his views. 
These illustrations might be yet further extended. 

The truth is, that everywhere among the Greeks of 

1 II. xviii. 508. 2 II. vii. 381. 3 Od. iii. 139. 

4 Od. iii. 162. 

F f % 



436 - JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Homer we find the signs of an intense corporate or 
public life, subsisting, and working side by side, with 
that of the individual. Of this corporate life, the 
Agore is the proper organ. If a man is to be described 
as great, he is always great, in debate and on the field : 
if as insignificant, then he is of no account either in 
battle or in council. The two grand forms of common 
and public action are taken for the tests of the indi- 
vidual man. 

When Homer wishes to describe the Kuklopes as 
living in a state of barbarism, he says, not that they 
have no kings, or no towns, or no army, but that they 
have no Assemblies, and no administration of justice h 
The source of life lay in the community, and the com- 
munity met in the Agore. So deeply imbedded is this 
sentiment in the mind of the Poet, that it seems as if 
he could not conceive an assemblage of persons having 
any kind of common function, without their having, so 
to speak, a common soul too in respect of it. 

Of this common soul, the organ, in Homer, is the 
Tis or c Somebody:' by no means one of the least 
remarkable, though he has been perhaps the least 
regarded, among the personages of the Poems. The 
Tis of Homer seems to be what in England we 
now call Public Opinion : the immediate impression 
created in the general mind by public affairs, or by the 
conduct of the chiefs. We constantly come upon oc- 
casions, when the Poet has to tell us what was the 
prevailing sentiment of the Greek army. He might 
have done this didactically, or by way of narrative. 
He has adopted a method more poetical and less ob- 

1 Od. ix. 112. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 437 

trusive. He proceeds dramatically, through the medium 
of a person and of a formula, c Hereupon, thus spoke 
somebody :' 

a>Se be Tis e'i7re(rKev. 

This would be sufficiently noteworthy if we found it 
only among the Greeks in war, and again in peace: 
for, when Odysseus causes music and dancing in his 
palace, with a view to producing an impression 
on the people of the town of Ithaca, it is Tis who 
tells what it was 1 . But it is not only in a normal 
state of things among his own people, that Tis is 
found. When Greeks and Trojans meet for the pur- 
pose of the Pact, there is a Tis for the Trojans also 2 . 
The Suitors, again, are a body of dissolute and selfish 
youths, and are competitors with each other for a prize 
which but one among them can enjoy. Yet in some 
sense they are bound together by a common interest 
of iniquity; and, although we are introduced to many 
of them individually by their speeches, yet they too 
have a Tis 3 who expresses their general sentiment on 
occurrences as they pass. Too broad to be confined 
to Greece, this conception is not even restricted to 
mankind : and Tis appears in Olympos, expressing the 
common or average sentiment of the assembled gods 4 . 

This remarkable and characteristic creation remains, 
1 believe, the exclusive property of Homer. But per- 
haps we may discern in the Homeric T i s the primary 
ancestor of the famous Greek Chorus. Like Tis, the 
Greek Chorus is severed from all mere individuality, 
and expresses the generalised sentiment of the body or 

1 Od. xxiii. 148-152. 2 II. iii. 319. 

3 Od. ii. 334. * Od. viii. 328. 



438 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

people to which it belongs, in the highest and best sense 
which their prevailing standard will allow. 

Except in the mouth of the scoundrel Thersites, 
nothing like political discontent appears in any part 
of the Poems of Homer. The popular sentiment adverse 
to Odysseus on his return to Ithaca is probably a per- 
sonal resentment, not only for the death of the Suitors, 
but for all the crews of his good ships lost in the War 
and on the Voyage. There is no invidious distinction 
between class and class, nor any of the social feuds 
which might be its result. No recognised portion of 
the community is imagined to require repression or 
restraint from the government. The King, or Chief, 
is uplifted to set a high example, to lead the common 
counsels to common ends, to conduct the public and 
common intercourse with heaven, to decide the strifes 
of private persons, which might bring danger to the 
common weal, and to defend the borders of the com- 
mon territory from invasion. 

For the chief component parts of Greek society, we 
have first the King and his family. Round him are 
his Kerukes, Serjeants or heralds, his only executive 
government : his Bard, ever giving delight, and re- 
ceiving respect : his Seniors, who assist in council, and 
in judgment: his Nobles, the only wealthy of the period. 
From them the Prince or King seems to be in general 
pretty broadly distinguished; for the rule is that the 
legitimate son, the heir-apparent, contracts marriage 
beyond his own borders. But Megapenthes, the. serf- 
born son of Menelaos, marries in Sparta itself 1 . 

Under the name of demioergoi 2 , which includes 
both the professional men and the skilled labourers of 

1 Od. iv. 5, io, 797 ; xi. 87 ; et alibi. 2 Od. xvii. 383. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 439 

the community, Homer includes the prophet, the physi- 
cian or wound-healer, the carpenter or wright, and the 
Bard 1 . The fact that the worker in metals is not 
included, tends to show, in accordance with all the 
other evidence of the Homeric text, that this kind of 
labour had not attained to any great degree of develop- 
ment in Greece. 

That the pursuits of manual labour were not below 
the notice even of princes, we find from the case not 
only of Odysseus, but of Paris 2 , who joined in the 
building of his own palace ; and of Lucaon, who was 
cutting young wood for his chariot, when, for the first 
time, he fell into the hands of Achilles 3 . Bards, heralds, 
and seers, are all persons of general influence and 
importance 4 . We hear of merchants only within the 
Phoenician circle : as Mentes of the Taphians, and again 
from the mouth of Eurualos in Scherie 5 . We have also 
in Scherie aisumnetai, or masters of the ceremonies, 
who make the arrangements needful for the dance 6 . 

There are inferior professions of partially skilled 
hand-labourers ; among whom it is interesting to notice 
the drain-digger; the fisherman, named only in Ithaca 7 ; 
the charioteer, and the woodman, for both of whom, says 
the Poet, as well as for the pilot, skill avails far more 
than force 8 . 

But the persons named in connection with special 
employments are rather classes, distinguished from the 
general body of the community, than the parts which 
make up the aggregate. They seem all to be picked 

1 In another place he adds the herald, Od. xix. 135. 

2 II. vi, 314. 3 II. xxi. 35. 

4 Od. iii. 267 ; xvii. 263 ; xxiv. 439. 5 Od. i. 183 ; viii. 161. 

6 Od. viii. 258. 7 Od. xxiv. 418. 8 II. xxiii. 315-318. 



440 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP. 

men. Considering on the one hand the position of the 
masses in the Assemblies, and the appeals there made to 
them, on the other, the absence, in both the Poems, of 
anything like an extended personal following attached 
to the kings or chiefs, I come slowly to the conclusion, 
as most agreeable to the evidence, which is far from 
demonstrative, that the bulk of the community were 
probably small or peasant proprietors, tilling their own 
lands. The mode of their equipment as heavy, not 
light, armed soldiers, tends to sustain this conclusion. 
Even the sons of the slave Dolios appear to put on the 
ordinary armour \ We have then probably before us, 
in the composition of early Greek society, that mixture 
and gradation of fortunes, which so much contribute 
to the unity and strength of a community : the eminent 
men leading because they were the best, and the mass 
content to follow them for the same good reason. 

The representation of the state of society* and of 
opinion in Ithaca, contained in the Odyssey is ex- 
tremely curious. The term Bao-iAeus, so carefully limited 
in the Iliad, is here extended to the chief nobles • 
as it is in Scherie to the twelve principal persons who 
were counsellors of Alkinoos: and, along with it the 
epithet Aiorpe<pr}s undergoes a similar enlargement. 
Since Homer drew from hearsay his materials for treat- 
ing of Scherie, we cannot reason confidently upon its 
institutions in their minute detail. But, when he 
speaks of Greek society, the case is different. And, 
in effect, what the Poet shows us in the dominions 
of Odysseus is, a great political change, brought about 
by the absence, through a prolonged period, of a powerful 
influence much more personal than traditional. King- 
1 Od. xxiv. 596. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 44 1 

ship subsisted at that period in virtue of the strong 
mind and strong hand of the King. Only the aizeos, 
the man within the flower of his manhood, was equal 
to it. Laertes from his age, Telemachos from his 
youth, Penelope as a woman, and thus open to the access 
of suitors, were unequal to the charge. In the absence, 
then, of the true King, each minor personage of the 
order of nobles apparently set up as king. Moreover 
local attachment prevailed over central influences ; and 
the people, at least of the town, were with the op- 
ponents of Odysseus. Except on his own estate, the 
influence of his family, after a course of years, was 
gone. Telemachos can only say that by no means are 
the whole of the demos 1 or people averse to him. 
The Suitors, shut within the palace for the terrible 
assault of Odysseus, feel that, if they could but get 
out into the town, so as to give the alarm, they should 
be safe. After the fact, Odysseus proposes by a strata- 
gem to arrest any rumour of the slaughter 2 . On 
finding Laertes, he declares, c we have no time to 
lose 3 / He had quitted the town at once, evidently 
as having no hope there. A civil war is the sequel 
to the return of the legitimate Sovereign, who has only 
to rely, after the favour of the gods and his own 
powerful mind, upon a mere handful of dependents. 
Odysseus calls the Suitors, whom he had destroyed, the 
stay or strength 4 of the community ; and the Shade 
of Agamemnon recognises them as the flower of men 5 . 
Doubtless their party was strengthened by their King's 
having lost all his comrades, and by the biting appeal 6 

1 Od. xvi. 114. 2 Od. xxiii. 137-140. 3 Od. xxiv. 324. 

4 Od, xxiii. 121. 5 Od. xxiv. 106-108; cf. 429. 

6 Od. xxiv. 428. 



442 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



[chap. 



they were thus enabled to make to the relatives of the 
dead. His sources of aid seem to have lain in Pulos and 
in Elis 1 . Of the Ithacan Assembly, near half 2 went 
to take arms against Odysseus ; while the others stood 
neuter. The great Chief had on the moment but twelve 
men in all to resist them : three of his family, nine 
serfs. 

A flood of light is thrown, from this picture in 
miniature, upon the structure of society, and the nature 
of political power among the Hellenes of the heroic, 
or the immediately post-heroic, age. 

Laws can hardly exist without writing; and, in the 
age of Homer, writing, or what stood in its place, was 
at most no more than the secret of a few families of 
Phoenician extraction. It was certainly unavailable 
for any purpose of general interest. A Greek word for 
< law ' is not to be found in Homer. With him, rojuo? 
means a tract of pasture 3 . We find however (a) hUr) 
and bUai, (h) dcpiores. The latter appear to be the 
principles of right ; the former, those principles of right 
put into action by judicial proceedings, when they have 
become matter of contention; the two 4 are clearly 
enough to be distinguished. 

In the absence of law, strictly so called, the Oath was 
of peculiar importance. It was so solemn, that the only 
special offence, expressly marked out for punishment in 
the other world, is the offence of perjury 5 . And it was 
so effectual, as not only to bind man to man, but deity 
to deity 6 . The river Styx was the great Oath of the 



1 Od. xxiv. 430, 436. 2 Od. xxiv. 463. 3 Od. ix. 217. 

4 Od. ix. 215. 5 II. iii. 279. 

6 II. xiv. 278 ; xv. 36-46. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 443 

gods 1 , evidently implying their liability, not indeed to 
death, but to deposition; and the possibility that they 
might exchange bright Olympos, as the older dynasties 
of Nature-Powers had exchanged it, for the dreary 
Underworld. The Trojans break faith and oath in 
the Fourth Iliad: the Greeks never. Yet Autolucos, 
the father of Penelope, had received from Hermes 2 the 
gifts of pilfering and perjury; and thus moral corrup- 
tion had begun to distil from depraved belief. 

The xeinos or xenos, in the largest sense, com- 
prehends and brings together three very different 
classes. 

1. The itinerating beggar 3 , ptochos pandemios, 
who, in days when money did not exist as a circulating 
medium, sought relief in the form of hospitality, relief 
in kind; and in some sense paid for it by carrying 
news 4 . 

%. The Suppliant (hiketes), who may be of station 
high or low, but who appears with a suit for shelter, 
subsistence, or other aid, under the pressure of some 
peculiar necessity or calamity. 

3. The xeinos proper; the guest, whose need arises 
simply out of the fact that, being away from home, he 
has not his resources at hand, and therefore seeks to 
have them supplied in the home of another. 

Slavery is not a prominent feature of Greek society 
in the Homeric age. It would appear to have been 
nearly or perhaps wholly confined to the establish- 
ments, in-door and out-door, of the chiefs. The lan- 
guage of Achilles in the Underworld, c rather would I 
serve for hire even with a poor employer/ seems to 

1 II. xv. 37. 2 Od. xix. 369. 3 Od. xviii. 1. 

* Od. xviii. 7. 



444 JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



CHAP. 



imply that hire was the ordinary basis of service. If 
Odysseus had had very numerous slaves, without doubt 
he and Telemachos would have been represented in 
the Odyssey as having raised and armed them against 
the party of the Suitors ; which they did with the mere 
handful at their command. The slaves appear to have 
been few, in comparison with the number of the com- 
munity. The demos or free people, who constituted 
the Assemblies, seem also to have composed the mass 
of the population of cultivators. 

The two sources named for supplying slaves are 
I. War; 
%. Kidnapping. 

In all cases this kidnapping is of single individuals. 
We hear of it as practised by the Phoenicians, the Ta- 
phians (a branch of the Phoenicians), and the Thes- 
protians. Not by the Greeks ; though Melanthios, the 
goatherd in the Odyssey, without doubt a serf, as he 
was the son of a serf 1 , among his other insolences, 
threatens to carry away Eumaios, and sell him 2 . 

We do not hear of any physical want or suffering in 
connection with the condition of slaves ; nor ought we 
to interpret too rigidly the prophecy of Hector concern- 
ing Andromache, as proving that they were treated 
with rudeness 3 . But Homer saw both the enfeebling 
and the depressing effect, the moral blight, of even a 
mild slavery, and has recorded it in golden words. 
With Homer, a slave is but one half of a man 4 . 

Slaves, from the circumstances of the case, were 
often of birth and manners not unequal to those of 

1 Od. xvii. 212; iv. 737. 2 Od. xvii. 249. 

3 II. vi. 454-463. Gomp. II. xxi. 484-507 ; where not slavery, 
but orphanhood, is supposed. 4 Od. xvii. 213. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 445 

their masters. Eumaios was the son of the ruler of his 
country j and was brought up together with Ctimene, 
the daughter of Laertes 1 . 

The slavery of Homer's time is a mitigated slavery. 
It nowhere appears in association with wanton cruelty 
or oppression. The slave may be familiar with his 
master : Odysseus, on the Return, is kissed by his slaves. 
The slave may acquire property, may be the master of 
other slaves, as Eumaios was of Mesaulios 2 • finally, he 
is trusted with arms. A good master is expected to 
supply his slave with a wife. 

The absence of the chiefs and army from Greece for 
a lengthened period, without any danger arising from 
this source, of itself appears to prove, that slaves must 
have constituted an element numerically insignificant 
in that country. Another reason for this belief is to 
be found in the fact, that no distinction appears to have 
been drawn, as in after times, of a nature to make 
laborious manual employments dishonourable. As it 
was part of the prized accomplishments of a King like 
Odysseus to be able to drive the plough, we may be 
almost sure that field-labour could not have been, either 
universally or generally, intrusted to the hands of 
slaves. 

The general picture presented to us is, that of free 
self-governing agricultural societies under mild aristo- 
cratic rule, the mass living in a self-sufficing independ- 
ence j and only a comparative handful, it is probable, 
dependent in any degree, however small, on the assist- 
ance of slaves for the management of their households 
and estates. At the same time, as between the serf 
and the thes or labourer for hire, it is material to 
1 Od. xv. 413, 363. 2 Od. xiv. 449. 



446 juventus mundi. [chap. 

remember that, in the Homeric period, wages could 
only be paid in kind, as there was no currency avail- 
able. This being so, the hired freeman, if without 
other resource, might perhaps, as to material comforts, 
be in no better position than the bondman. 

We have no trace of slavery in the Greek army, nor 
of any large or numerous class of slaves anywhere. 
The probable inference again, is, that slaves consti- 
tuted but a limited proportion of the community. 

It is possible that gold and silver may to a very 
trifling extent have been used as a common measure 
of commodities, or medium of exchange. For gold is 
frequently mentioned as a constituent part of stored 
wealth j and we can hardly suppose that it was so stored 
simply for use in the manufacture of commodities for 
the owners by gilt plating or otherwise. But, on the 
other hand, other commodities are not valued in gold 
or in silver. Only the payment of the Judge's fee, or 
prize, in gold, on the Shield of Achilles, approaches 
to a case of the use of gold money. It is like the 
semata or signs on the tablets of Proitos, the germ 
of a practice rather than the practice itself. 

The arms of Glaucos and of Diomed, the tripod 
which is the first prize for wrestlers in the Games, and 
the skilled captive woman who was the second, are all 
valued or priced in oxen 1 ; and the ox is the commo- 
dity which represents in Homer what we now term the 
measure of value, as far as it can be said to be repre- 
sented at all. The captive Lucaon fetches for Achilles 
the value of a hundred oxen 9 : Eurucleia is sold to 
Laertes for the value of twenty 3 . The Suitors promise 

1 II. xxiii. 702-705. 2 II. xxi. 79. 3 Od. i. 431. 



XI.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 447 

to Odysseus the value of a hundred oxen each, as ran- 
som 1 . The most detailed account in the Poems of a 
commercial transaction is in the Seventh Iliad, where 
Euneos gives wine in exchange for slaves, hides, cop- 
per, iron, and oxen. The four first-named commodities 
he might well carry away from a camp for sale else- 
where. As to slaves, for example, the skilled woman 
of the Iliad is worth only four oxen : Eurucleia in Ithaca 
worth twenty. They represent respectively the prices 
of an exporting market with a glut, and of a market 
of import with a demand from over sea scantily sup- 
plied. The oxen which Euneos took, he possibly took 
from those who were overstocked, and sold again on 
the spot to such as chanced to want them 2 . 

Thus we can understand why ^Eschylus represents 
the ox as the earliest sign impressed on money 3 . 

Among the leading political ideas exhibited in the 
Homeric Poems will be found the following : — 

Authority to rule is derived from heaven, and the 
abuse of this authority, the corruption and the crimes 
of rulers, are marked by divine judgments on a land. 

Equality is not dreamt of; but liberty is highly 
prized. 

A strong sense of responsibility weighs upon the 
mind of any ruler not utterly corrupt. 

The possessions and honours of kings are not un- 
conditional, but are held by them in trust for the 
performance of public duties; among these, in order 
that they may set an example to the people in time 
of danger. 

The gravest matters affecting the public interest are 
debated and decided in the Assemblies of the people. 

1 Od. xxii. 57-59. 2 II. vii. 467-475. 3 Agam. 37. 



448 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



[chap. 



Discussion is conducted in general by persons en- 
joying weight from their age, station, birth, or ability ; 
in a word, by the class possessed of leisure and social 
influence ; but the deliberation and assent of the As- 
semblies are free. 

A public opinion readily forms and freely circulates 
among the people, approving or condemning the acts 
of those in authority. 

Publicity attends all judicial and deliberative pro- 
ceedings ; but a council of chiefs often privately pre- 
pares matter for the Assembly. 

The will of the Assembly takes effect in the Act of 
the Executive 1 . 

Speech is the great accomplishment of man ; and is 
the main instrument of government in peace, as the 
sword is in war. These two powers, representing 
moral and martial force respectively, stand in a po- 
sition of honour peculiar to themselves. 

These political ideas are traceable in the Olympian, 
as well as in the human, society ; but their application 
and development are less satisfactory in that upper 
region. 

The bond that held Greek society together in the 
Homeric time, and that secured the basis on which it 
was to be organised and developed, was fivefold; and 
the strands of this well-knit rope are represented re- 
spectively by single words. 

i. 0eo?, the Deity, and the worship of Immortal and 
unseen Beings in all its various forms. 

2. Qefiis, the principle of social right and duty, 
chiefly as between neighbours and fellow- 
citizens. 

1 Od. v. 99. 



XI 



.] POLITY OF THE HEROIC AGE. 449 



3. r/ 0/)Ko? 3 the ultimate sanction of good faith. 
. 4. Eeiuo?, representing the basis of kindly and 
friendly relation, and of good offices among 
men, beyond the limits of polity and of class. 
5. TajjLosy the great institution of marriage, deter- 
mining the relation between the two varieties 
of human kind ; constituting the family, and 
providing for the continuance of the species. 
The one great creative and formative idea which 
runs through the whole of these is Reverence, that 
powerful principle, the counter-agent to all meanness 
and selfishness, which obliges a man to have regard to 
some law or standard above that of force, and extrinsic 
to his own will, his own passions, or his own pro- 
pensities. 

The five given above are the main channels into 
which the stream is distributed. But they have many 
subdivisions or specific forms, such as — 

Reverence for Parents • 

Reverence for Kings ; 

Reverence for the old ; 

Reverence for beauty; of which perhaps the very 
noblest example ever given is the manner in 
which Odysseus is struck by Nausicaa. One 
much lower, and more Asiatic, is that of the 
Trojan brmoyepovTes, or Elders, when Helen goes 
forth to the Wall x ; 

Reverence for the opinion of fellow men 2 ; 

Reverence for the dead ; 

Reverence for the weak and poor. 
These emotions and habits of reverence were to the 
1 Od. vi. 149 seqq. II. iii. 154-158. 2 II. ix. 459-461. 



450 JUVENTUS mundi. 

. 

Greek mind and life what the dykes in Holland are to 
the surface of the country- shutting off passions as 
the angry sea, and securing a broad open surface for 
the growth of every tender and genial product of 
the soil. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Resemblances and Differences between the Greeks 
and the Trojans. 

This subject, which has been treated with some 
detail in the c Studies on Homer 1 / will now be touched 
on only so far as to present its main heads. 

Sufficient reason has perhaps been given for the 
belief that there is a double ethnical relation between 
the inhabitants of Troas and of Greece. The common 
soldiery appear to correspond, without any sensible in- 
feriority of the Trojans, who, however, appear to have 
been in greater proportion lightly armed ; and all that 
we learn of the people tends to associate them, in blood 
and language, with what we may largely call the Pelas- 
gian and more archaic element in Greece. The ruling 
houses, again, are connected in the bonds of hospitality, 
as appears from the visit of Paris to Menelaos. The 
son of Anchises resided in Greece 2 . Diomed has the 
xenial relation with the Lycian Glaucos. Relations to 
the line of the personage termed Aiolos, so powerful 
in Greece, are visible in the Dardanian royal family. 
1 Vol. iii. Ilios, pp. 145-247. 2 II. xxiii. 296. 

Gg3 









45^ JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

When we turn to language, a near relation, perhaps 
that of substantial identity, seems probable. A Greek 
name, Astuanax, lord of the city, is expressly stated 
to have been given by the Trojans to the son of Hector. 
The Trojan army, indeed, is stated to have spoken 
various tongues ; but this is placed in immediate con- 
nection with the presence of the Epicouroi or allies 1 , 
one race of whom, the Carians, are called speakers 
of a barbarous, meaning probably a wholly foreign, 
language. 

In the matter of religion there is little, if any, 
difference between the mere names of such gods as are 
brought prominently forward. As the great controversy 
was to be fought out in Olympos, no less than on earth, 
Homer was in a manner compelled to find a meeting- 
point for the mythologies of the respective parties. 
We find mentioned expressly the worship in Troas of 
Zeus, Athene, Apollo, and Hephaistos. Leto and 
Artemis attend in the temple of Apollo on Pergamos. 
Ares must have been known as a god to those, for 
whom he fights. Aphrodite was eminently Trojan, as 
we see from her favour for Paris ; her passion for 
Anchisesj her marriage-gift to Andromache; her mi- 
nisterial charge over the body of Hector 2 ; and from 
the biting taunts of Pallas, of Helen, and of Diomed 3 . 
Hermes is said to give increase to the flocks of 
Phorbas 4 ; yet does not appear to be recognised as a 
known Trojan deity by Priam, when he gives his name, 
and specifies in addition that he is an immortal god 5 . 
Poseidon had a deadly quarrel with Troy, but was in 

1 II. ii. 803-806. 2 II. xxiii. 184-187. 

3 II. iii. 400-402 ; v. 348-351, 420-425. 4 II. xiv. 490. 
6 II. xxiv. 461. 



XII.] THE GREEKS AND THE TROJANS. 453 

close and friendly relations with the Dardanian branch 1 . 
Here is named as the wife of Zeus, and as slighted 
in the Judgment of Parish 

Now, a great River — not the humanised spirit of a 
River, but the River itself— the Scamandros, or Xanthos, 
of the Ilian plain, appears in the Theomachy, and 
fights on the side of Troy against Hephaistos. Here is 
an indication, which cannot be mistaken, that a 
Nature-worship, alien to the Olympian system, pre- 
vailed in Troas. We have other signs of this great and, 
probably, fundamental distinction of the two religions. 
While Here is so faintly sketched, her Pelasgian proto- 
type, Gaia, is an object of ordinary worship in Troas, 
although in Greece she is banished to the Underworld. 
And the Sun (Helios) of the Iliad sympathises with the 
Trojans, while the Apollo of the First Book shows signs 
of affinity with that luminary, that are rooted perhaps 
in his name Phoibos, but that are not allowed any 
place or recognition in the Olympian scheme. Of all 
single passages, that which most gives the key to the 
distinction is the speech of Menelaos before the Pact 3 , 
where he proposes a joint act of religion to be per- 
formed on behalf of both parties. The Greeks are to 
offer a single lamb to Zeus ; and the Trojans two, one 
of them to the Earth, the other to the Sun. Eos, the 
morning, another Nature-Power, is made known to us 
as the bride of Tithonos, and may therefore be set down 
among the deities of Troy. It does not seem clear 
that she was in any way impersonated in Greece. 

It is very probable, that Hephaistos and other deities 
may have been known under forms of tradition variously 

1 II. xx. 290-292. 2 II. x. 3295 xiii. 8275 xxiv. 29. 

3 II. iii. 103. 



454 JUVENTUS MUNDT. [CHAP. 

modified, in Troas and in Greece respectively; and, 
indeed, in different portions of one and the same 
country. These forms, however distinct or discordant, 
the plan of Homer required him in some manner to 
amalgamate. 

So much for abstract belief, As to the modes of its 
development, they would appear to have been on the 
Trojan side sacerdotal, on the Greek imaginative. In 
the Greek system, besides the great Olympian deities, 
we have the gods of the older dynasty, and of the 
Underworld ; the Giants ; the Nymphs, and other per- 
sonages, anthropomorphically conceived, and presiding 
over groves, rivers, meadows ; the great ethical figures 
of the Destinies and the Erinues, of Ate and the 
Prayers ; and a multitude of purely poetical impersona- 
tions, such as Terror, Rumour, and the like. In Troas, 
we seem to find none of this large and varied ap- 
paratus, except the names of certain Nymphs, who are 
mentioned as mothers of human children. Indeed, 
even the future state seems to have been feebly con- 
ceived in Troy 1 ; and the oath of Hector to Dolon 2 
makes no allusion to the penalty of perjury, which, as 
we see, was incurred by Pandaros without shame or 
hesitation. Not only do we still hear of the illustrious 
Shade of Patroclos after death, but the passage of the 
souls of the Suitors from Ithaca is vividly described in 
the Odyssey 3 ; but of the Trojans nothing is ever told 
us beyond the grave, except one or two repetitions of 
the mere formula that they went to Hades. A ma- 
terialising religion is not favourable to the retention 
of the belief in a future state ; and human experience 
seems to have established widely, up to the present 

1 II. vi. 422 ; xxii. 482. 2 II. x. 329. 3 xxiv» 1-10. 



XII.] THE GREEKS AND THE TROJANS. 455 

point of the history of the race, the connection be- 
tween such a belief and the repression of perjury. 

But when we turn to sacerdotal institutions and 
ritual forms, again the contrast is a striking one. 

The three subjects of priesthood, temples, and glebes, 
seem to be closely connected; especially the first and 
third : for where there was an estate, we may be pretty 
sure that there was some official person, namely the 
priest, to live upon the proceeds. 

Now we never hear of a temenos, or consecrated 
glebe-land, for any deity, except four times. There 
is the temenos of Zeus in Gargaros 1 ; of Demeter in 
Thessaly 2 ; of Aphrodite at Paphos 3 ; and of the River 
Spercheios in Thessaly 4 . The first is in Troas; the 
third in Cyprus ; the other two stand in evident con- 
nection with the old or Pelasgian worship. 

Let us next look to the Priests of the Poems. We 
have Chruses, the priest of Apollo in Troas ; Maron, 
a priest of the same deity at Ismaros, among the 
Kikones, allies of Troy; and again in Troas, Dares, 
priest of Hephaistos ; Dolopion (areter, literally pray-er) 
of Scarrtandros ; Theano, priestess of Athene ; Onetor, 
priest of the Zeus of Ida. But neither in the Greek 
army, nor in Greece itself, have we any mention of 
a priest contemporary with the Poems. Especially in 
the case of Ithaca this negative evidence is strong. 
I refer back to what has been already said on this 
subject in the description of the kingly office. 

Besides the Priests, there is the separate order of 
Prophets. These are fully known in Greece under 
different names, and are recognised as one of the 

1 II. viii. 48. 2 II. ii. 696. 3 Od. viii. 362. 

* II. xxiii. 148. 



456 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

regular standing professions in a community at peace, 
while Calchas is the mantis or prophet of the army. 
These organs of the deity interpret sometimes from 
signs and omens, sometimes without them. There 
was some degree of approximation between the two 
characters. A prophet, or seer, might be an inspector 
of sacrifices, though he did not offer them 1 . On the 
other hand, a priest was supposed to be capable of 
interpreting the divine will 2 . But distinctions of the 
social state serve sufficiently to manifest the separation 
of the two characters, even independently of the fact 
that the seer or prophet never offers sacrifice. For the 
last-named personage is distinguished from the rest of 
the community only by the possession of his gift; whereas 
the priest appears to be wholly exempted from military 
service, and a kind of sanctity attaches to his character, 
as is most of all clearly shown by the fact that the 
offence of Agamemnon, which brought the Pest upon 
the Greek army, consisted only in his refusal to take 
ransom for the captive daughter of a priest, an act 
which he probably might have ventured with impunity 
in the case of the child even of a prince. Yet the 
teaching office, as far as we can trace it at all, seems 
to lie less with the priest, than with the prophet 3 . 

With respect to temples, it is plain that Apollo had 
a temple at Putho, and probable that Pallas also had 
one at Athens. No temple is named in Ithaca. They 
seem to have abounded in Troas: and, in the Sixth 
Odyssey, the building of temples 4 is named as one of 
the elements of the construction of a city. It does not 
follow that these temples were in all cases roofed 

1 II. xxiv. 221. Od. xxii. 318. 2 II. i. 62. 

3 Od. xxii. 313-315. 4 Od. vi. 10. 



XII.] THE GREEKS AND THE TROJANS. 457 

buildings: they may have been in some instances no 
more than consecrated inclosures. Even in the Greek 
camp, there was a central place for Assemblies, and for 
Suits : and here were the altars of the gods \ We 
are not entitled to infer from the existence of a temple 
in any particular place, the existence of a priesthood. 

The grove (alsos) appears to have been a common 
form for the site of religious worship, both in and out 
of Greece. 

In Troy, we hear of a statue or image of Athene 2 , 
to which was offered the Robe, presented by the Trojan 
women in their solemn procession. And on the Shield 
of Achilles there are delineated figures 3 of that goddess 
and of Ares respectively, together with those of the 
armed bands under their several patronage. But 
no sanctity attends these figures ; they are simple 
representations of Art. We have no trustworthy trace 
of a statue used in worship, except the solitary case 
just named in Troy. And the common expression of 
Homer, that the disposition of events lies in the lap 
of the gods, is perhaps sufficiently explained by the 
anthropomorphic character of the Olympic scheme, if 
indeed it requires even that explanation. 

Lastly, the Trojans appear to be distinguished 4 for 
punctuality and liberality in sacrifice. But we hear of 
much neglect of this matter on the part of the Greeks. 
Menelaos, one of the best and purest characters among 
the Greek chieftains, was punished for his omission to 
offer up the proper hecatombs, by a long and trying 
detention in Egypt 5 . A like neglect was the cause 
of difficulties in the general Return of the Greek 

1 II. xi. 806-808. 2 II. vi. 303. 3 II. xviii. 516-519. 

4 II. iv. 48. 5 Od. iv. 351-353. 



45^ JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

army 1 . And before Troy, in the hasty construction of 
the trench and rampart, the whole of the army forgot the 
proper hecatombs 2 . The Trojans, then, much excelled 
their enemies in religious observance. It seems also 
true that, as between Greek and Greek, the pious 
observers of the law of sacrifice were the better men. 
But we can in no manner claim for the Trojans a 
morality superior to that of their opponents. 

Rather, indeed, the reverse. In the War of Troy, 
justice is plainly with the Greeks. Of course I speak 
of the delineation of the case such as we have it in 
Homer, and do not inquire how far the Poet may have 
caused the scale to incline on behalf of his country by 
the weight of his own thoughts and wishes. The crime 
of Paris would have been gross, had it been merely an 
elopement. But it was an abduction ; and an abduc- 
tion too, attended with mere thievery of goods. These 
features in our eyes are aggravations ; probably, in 
those of Homer and his contemporaries, they may have 
tended to mitigate the offence, by imparting to it some of 
the features of war 3 . And, in those days, abduction was 
probably not regarded as criminal in itself. But there 
always remains the grave offence of violated hospitality. 
And accordingly, while Helen shows marks of aversion 
for Paris, the Trojan people hate him like black death 4 . 
He contrives to hold his place by effrontery, and by 
bribes 5 ; and he is the object of sharp rebuke from 
Hector 6 . With the exception of Menelaos, we find 
much less indignation among the Greek chiefs, than 

1 Od. iii. 141-145. 2 II. vii. 450. 

3 Compare the case of Heracles and Iphitos, Od. xxi. 22-30. 

4 II. iii. 428-436; vi. 352. 5 II. vii. 354-364; xi. 123. 
6 II. iii. 46-53. 






XII.] THE GREEKS AND THE TROJANS. 459 

we might have expected. Perhaps we may reasonably 
consider that in this, as in many later cases, the 
original causes of the quarrel were to a great extent 
lost and absorbed in its following incidents. Christian 
ideas, again, would fix a deeper guilt on Paris, especially 
under the actual circumstances, according as his adul- 
terous connection was more prolonged, But the offence 
of Paris is regarded in Homer as arising from want of 
self-control, rather than from hardened wickedness. It 
is always treated as an ate, into which weakness 
enters, and not, like the conduct of the Suitors, as an 
atasthalie, which is purely deliberate and hardened. 
The evil act once perpetrated,, Paris had a marriage of 
fact with Helen, who was installed into the family of 
Priam : and of this marriage, odious as his character 
must be held, he is in some sort the defender. It was 
not wholly unlike the stealing of a birthright ; which, 
once acquired, was valid. So the offence of Helen 
did not lie in living with a man who was not her 
husband, so much as having taken one husband in 
exchange for another. 

It is not unlikely that a more base and less manly 
morality among the Trojans may help to account for 
the patient endurance of so much privation and 
calamity for the sake of a man, who did not even 
redeem his vices (so to speak) by personal courage, or by 
refinement of manners \ This conjecture is certainly 
sustained 2 by the remark of the Senators on the wall. 
In Ithaca the same idea is ascribed to the dissolute 
Suitors 3 . But much of the cause must, I think, have 
lain in a difference of institutions. The outward forms 

1 See the whole of II. iii. 2 II. iii. 156. 

3 Od. xviii. 1 60-2 1 2. 



4«5o JUVENTU3 MUNDI. [CHAP. 

of polity were not, indeed, broadly different. We have 
on both sides a King ; a Council, or Councillors at the 
least j and an Assembly. But we have no indications 
of that spirit of freedom in the Trojan community, 
which found such noble scope in masculine debate, 
and even in positive action, among the Greeks. On 
both sides we find the germ of after-history: the 
Trojans bearing in many points the more Asiatic, the 
Greeks the more European stamp. The one type leans 
to fraud, where the other inclines to force. King Lao- 
medon defrauds Poseidon and Apollo • Anchises steals 
from Laomedon, Paris from Menelaos : when Pandaros 
most grossly breaks the public faith, there is no 
reproach: Euphorbos wounds Patroclos in the back. 
The mild Menelaos declares, that the sons of Priam 
cannot be trusted 1 . Though a single passage in the 
Odyssey places flat perjury, as well as theft, under the 
patronage of Hermes 2 , the Greeks appear, throughout 
the Iliad, to pursue an honourable course of conduct. 

A tendency, again, to sensual excess appears to run 
in the royal line of Troy, under much less of restraint 
than we find in the Greek houses. This is especially 
remarkable in the mythology. Aphrodite and Eos, 
goddesses markedly Trojan, and Demeter, who is at 
least Pelasgian, condescended to irregular relations 
with men 3 . So it is with the Naiad nymphs of 
Troas 4 . But about the goddesses recognised by the 
Homeric Greeks, Pallas, Artemis, Persephone, and 
even Here, we hear nothing of the kind. 

The polygamy of Priam is wholly without counter- 

1 II. iii. 105. 2 Od. xix. 369. 3 Od. v. 1 21-127. 

4 II, vi. 21 ; xiv. 44 ; xx. 384. 






XII.] THE GREEKS AND THE TROJANS. 461 

part in Greece. It seems, however, to be not that of 
a dissolute man, but of the head of a family regularly 
organised : not personal, but traditional. He had fifty 
sons, nineteen of them from the single womb of 
Hecuba 1 ; and twelve daughters. Besides Hecuba, 
who was the principal queen, there were other 
recognised wives; and behind them again were con- 
cubines, or else, which seems less probable, women 
in no permanent relation whatever to the King. As 
ten sons of Antenor (besides one spurious son) are 
mentioned in the Iliad, all within the fighting age, 
and as his wife Theano is still blooming (callipareos), 
it seems highly probable that he, too, may have had 
more wives than one. 

Again, while the guilty act of Paris appears to have 
been regarded without moral disapproval in Troy, the 
first act of Aigisthos, the corruption of Clutaimnestra, 
was regarded by the gods as a crime 2 , even apart from 
the murder of Agamemnon : and their sentiment prob- 
ably expresses the average moral judgment of the 
country. Again, it was the main part of the guilt 
of the Suitors, which drew down so terrible a retribu- 
tion, that they sought to wed Penelope while her 
husband might still be supposed to be alive 3 . 

The prevalence of polygamy, even in the highest 
families, is obviously adverse to the rule of an here- 
ditary succession to the crown. And it seems more 
than doubtful, from the Poems, whether this rule was 
observed on the Trojan side as fully as in Greece. 
Sarpedon and Glaucos are both called Kings : yet they 
belonged to the same kingdom, and they were cousins. 
Again, Sarpedon evidently had the chief place: yet 

1 II. xxiv, 496 ; vi. 248. 2 Od. i. 35. 3 Od. xxii. 37. 



46a juventus mundi. [chap. 

Glaucos was the representative of the royal house in 
the male line, Sarpedon only in the female. Among 
the Greeks the title of King is only given to one 
person in one country, who must be either in pos- 
session, or heir-apparent. 

In the recital of the genealogy from Dardanos, 
iEneas does not give a precedence of superiority to 
either branch; and he leaves 1 us to doubt, or to 
inquire from some other sources, which line was 
the senior, the Trojan or the Dardanian. Again, 
Achilles expressly taunts that chieftain as a candi- 
date for the succession in Troy after the death of 
Priam 2 . 

Further, it appears open to much question, which of 
the sons of Priam himself we are to understand to have 
been the eldest. The whole responsibility of command 
evidently lay upon Hector ; and there can be no doubt, 
even if it were only from the name given to his infant 
son by the people, that he was already the king- 
designate in the public view. But that name would 
have had little special significance, had Hector been 
sure of the succession by mere seniority. While the 
ability and value of Hector are of themselves sufficient 
to account for his prominent place, it is very difficult, 
except upon the supposition that seniority was more or 
less the competing element with merit, to account 
for various features in the position of Paris. Alone 
among the children of Priam, he enjoys the title of 
Basileus or King, which is never given to Hector. 
Although utterly insignificant as a warrior, he is the 
chief in command of the second among the five 



1 II. xx. 231-240. 2 II. xx. 178-183. 






XII.] THE GREEKS AND THE TROJANS. 463 

divisions of Trojans in the great battle of the Twelfth 
Book, as Hector is of the First 1 . Except Hector, Paris 
is the only prince who has a separate dwelling of his 
own on the hill of Pergamos. The other princes all, 
married as well as unmarried, sleep in the palace 
of their father. His expedition to Greece does 
not absolutely imply his being the eldest son; but 
perhaps best accords with that otherwise far from im- 
probable supposition. 

Again ; Paris, according to the representation of the 
Iliad, had been in manhood for at least twenty years. 
But Hector had one child only, a babe in arms. The 
word hebe, which expresses a full-grown, but still a 
blooming, manhood, is applied to Hector 2 , but not to 
Paris. It is applied indeed to Odysseus in Scherie; 
but this is when he had been preternaturally beautified 
under the restoring hand of Athene; and also in the 
complimentary speech of a host 3 . We cannot suppose 
Hector to have been very different in age from 
Andromache : but she must still have been young, 
for her own grandfather had been alive during 
the War 4 . And finally, in her lament over her 
husband, she distinctly calls him young 5 . So much 
as to the apparent seniority of Paris; and, with this, 
for the less defined and more lax law of succession 
in Troy. 

The relation of Priam to the districts or countries, 
which supplied the several contingents of his force, is 
but indistinctly conveyed to us. Yet it is probable 
from the arrangement and expressions of the Trojan 

1 II. xii. 93. 2 II. xxii. 363. 3 Od. viii. 135. 

4 II. vi. 426-428, 5 II. xxiv. 725. 



4^4 JU VENT US MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Catalogue, and from minor circumstances, that, besides 
his kingdom of Ilion, he exercised over Dardania, and 
at least three other districts, an authority more or less 
like to that of Agamemnon over the Greek chieftains. 
However this may be, even the ancients justly described 
the Trojan war as the conflict of the Eastern with 
the Western world. And it foreshadowed other yet 
greater conflicts, down to our own day. 

Within the kingdom of Troy, we can more clearly 
discern the inferior compactness of political society, 
and its lower spirit of intelligence and freedom. We 
have every sign that the Trojan Elders did not act 
collectively as a Council \ This is an important 
defect in such a body with reference to the means of 
moral influence. But Assemblies met. There Antenor 
proposed, and Paris refused, the surrender of Helen : 
popular discontent was expressed ; and we are expressly 
told, that he was able to procure the defeat of other 
such proposals only by corruption 2 . An Assembly 
agreed to ask a truce for the burial of the dead. In 
an Assembly, Hector somewhat curtly put down the 
opposition of Poludamas as a stranger 3 . 

But we have to remark, in the Trojan Assembly, as 
follows : — 

i. That there is no sign of its having been guided 
by men of wisdom and valour, but only by age and 
rank. 

2. That oratory does not seem to have been em- 
ployed in it as an instrument of persuasion. 

3. That the Elders, who assist Priam in public 
affairs, are simply the old men, and not, as with the 



II. ii. 788, 789- 2 II. vii. 379. 

3 II. xii. 2 1 1-2 14. 






XII.] THE GREEKS AND THE TROJANS. 465 

Greeks, the chief and able men, belonging to the high 
families of the State. 

4. The Trojan Assembly does not clearly appear 
to have been convened on special occasions : but per- 
haps rather to have sat in permanence, in the sense 
of having only consisted of such persons as might 
chance to be present, at any given moment, in the 
places of public resort 1 . 

There seems in Troy — as in the institutions we now 
term Asiatic — to be nothing to stand between royalty 
and the people. There was thus less balance of forces, 
less security against precipitate action ; a state of facts 
in all likelihood accompanied by less respect for pub- 
lic morality, less security for private rights. 

The Poet has given us, evidently of set purpose, 
a minor indication of Trojan inferiority, in the con- 
trasts he presents of the silence and self-possession 
of the Greeks, with the din and buzz of the Trojans, 
as they marched to battle. At the burying of the dead, 
both armies wept and were silent : but the silence of 
the Trojans was because great Priam forbade a noise 2 . 
A Trojan Assembly is uneasy and excitable 3 : never 
a Greek one. Even for the expressions of approval, 
different words are used: the Greeks were eager and 
vehement, the noise of the Trojans was promiscuous 
and tumultuous. In a word, all through the Poems, 
the Greek mind is evidently endowed with a finer 
sense, and a higher intelligence. 

1 II. ii. 788 ; vii. 414. Studies, pp. 237 seqq. 

2 II. vii. 426-432. 3 II. vii. 346 ; iii. 2, 8 ; iv. 429, 436. 



Hh 



li 






CHAPTER XIII. 



The Geography of Homer. 



Section I. 



The Catalogue. 



The Catalogue of Homer is a great attempt to 
construct what may, for those times, be justly called a 
cadastral account of Greece; together with an outline 
of the Trojan force, sufficient for the purposes of the 
Poem. 

In 348 lines, it contains 501 proper names, spread 
over diverse and very irregular tracts of country, and 
including many which belong to personal history and 
genealogy. To recite this part of the Poem with accu- 
racy evidently required a great effort of memory. 
To write it, would have required no more effort, per- 
haps indeed less, than the average tenour of the Iliad. 
Now the Invocation to the Muses at the commence- 
ment, the most formal and elaborate which the Poems 
contain, clearly shows that the Bard was about to un- 
dertake a weighty task. Thus the Catalogue, together 
with its introduction, becomes a powerful piece of 
evidence to show that the Iliad was not written but 
recited. 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF. HOMER. 467 

Next ; the Genealogies of the Greek Catalogue, 
eleven in number, testify in a remarkable manner to 
the historic aims of the Poet, which led him to connect 
all his leading personages with the past, at the very time 
when he was securing to them a deathless heritage in 
the future. Again, the Poet has avoided the error of 
confounding his primary with his secondary leaders. 
The greater chiefs have their descents traced singly, in 
various parts of the Iliad, so as to give them due pro- 
minence. But in the Catalogue a number of secondary 
genealogies are massed together. 

In his performance of this operation, where a re- 
citing Bard was to lose the aid commonly afforded him 
by the natural continuity of his subject-matter, Homer 
has sought for a substitute in a kind of mental figure- 
drawing. He divides the whole territory of Greece 
and the Islands into three circles, more or less regular 
and perfect j with a fourth figure of the nature of a 
zigzag. 

The first circle begins with the Boeotians and ends 
with Mycenae; containing nine contingents 1 . 

The second is a zigzag, beginning with Lacedaemon, 
and ending with the Aitoloi; and comprises seven 
contingents 2 . 

The third is part of a circle of islands, beginning 
with Crete, and ending with Carpathos and other small 
islands. This portion gives four contingents 3 . 

In the fourth, or Thessalian portion 4 , it is more dif- 
ficult, and in some cases hardly feasible, to identify the 
sites ; but, as far as may be, the Poet appears to adhere 

m 

1 II. ii. 4*t-58o. 2 581-644. 3 645-680. 

4 681-759. 

h h % 



468 JUVENTUS MUNDI, [CHAP. 

to the same circular arrangement. Here also we have 
nine contingents. 

In each, then, of these four divisions of the territory, 
the Poet makes his figure his guide, and proceeds from 
each district to the one lying next to it on the proper 
line, until the figure is completed. Water sometimes 
intervenes ; but no territory seems to be skipped over. 

Thus there is a clue all along, except indeed at the 
points of transition from one division to another, For 
these, also, he seems to have provided. In each case 
he ends with a district, the neighbour to which, accord- 
ing to the line of his figure, has already been disposed of. 
Thus in the first, were he to go beyond Mycenae, he 
would find himself among the Boeotians again. So that 
he is as it were reminded, by this contrivance, to re- 
commence. 

In the Trojan Catalogue, I find but two genealogies ; 
and one of them is that of the Pelasgian leader. Now 
the Pelasgian blood, it will be remembered, seems to 
be the common bond between the masses on each 
side. 

In the Greek Catalogue, Homer specifies the respec- 
tive amounts of the contingents of force supplied from 
the different portions of the country. This is evidently 
meant to give to each chief and district his due position, 
relatively to the rest. In Troas he pursues no such 
arrangement ; for he had no such object. And among 
the Epicouroi, or Allies 1 , there was another difficulty; 
as they came and went in successive reliefs, whereas 
the Achaians were a permanent force. 

Generally, I cannot but think that the comparison 

1 II. ii. 816-839 






XIII.] THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER. 469 

of the two Catalogues is highly unfavourable to the 
theory which regards Homer as an Asiatic Greek: a 
theory which, in my opinion, should also be repudiated 
upon more comprehensive grounds. The Greek Cata- 
logue is charged throughout with what I may call 
local colour and with visual epithets: epithets which 
imply some personal familiarity, and raise up a pro- 
spect or scene before the mental eye of a reader or 
a hearer. In the fifty-two lines of the Trojan Cata- 
logue, it would be difficult to point out more than 
eight of these: the precipitous tops of Tereie and 
Mucale; the fertile Larissa; the wide-flowing of the 
limpid Axios; the eddying Xanthos; the dark water 
of Aiseposj the lofty Eruthinoi; the wooded hill of 
Phtheiroi \ Four only of these come from Asia Minor 
to the south of Troas, with which Homer is supposed 
to be so familiar. On the other side of the iEgean, 
ten at least of such epithets are found within the thir- 
teen lines that describe the places, which supplied the 
Boeotian contingent. 

1 II. ii. 825, 829, 841, 849, 855, 868, 869, 877. 



470 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 



Section II. The Plain of Troy\ 

The leading topical points in the plain of Troy are 
as follows : — 

i. The Scamandrian plain 2 , near the river Scaman- 
dros, forming the northern and western part of the 
Trojan plain, and reaching up to or near the En- 
campment. 

2. The Ilei'an plain 3 , near the city, lying south and 
perhaps east from it. 

3. The Scaian Gates 4 , north of the city, the ordinary 
way of exit to the plain. Near them is the phegos 5 . 

4. The Dardanian Gates, south of the city, commu- 
nicating with Dardania on the hill. II. xx. 216-218. 

5. The junction of the rivers. II. v. 774. 

6. The ford of Xanthos, and the monument of Ilos 
near it. II. xxiv. 

7. The Zpivtbs, or wild fig-tree, near this ford (346-353 
and 692-694), and the tomb of Ilos. Here was a 
o-kottlt] or place convenient for observation, and a wag- 
gon road. All these are near the city. II. vi. 433 ; 
xi. 166, 167- xxii. 145. 

8. The Opao-fjibs, or roll, of the plain near the northern 
extremity, and the Encampment of the Greeks. II. x, 
j6o; xi. $6\ xx. 3. 

9 The Mound of Aisuetes, near enough to the En- 
campment for observations. II. ii. 793. 

10. The hillock Batieia, in the southern part of the 
plain, at some distance from the city. II. ii. 813. 

1 Of this subject, no notice was taken in the ' Studies on 
Homer.' 2 II. ii. 465 3 II. xxi. 558. 

4 II. iii. 145, et alibi. 5 II. vi. 237. 



XIII. J THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER. 47 1 

11. The two fountains of Scamandros. II. xxii. 147. 

12. The mouths of the two rivers, distinct one from 
another. See II. xii. 21. 

1 3. The quarters of Achilles and of Telamonian Ajax 
respectively, marking the extremes east and west of 
the Greek Encampment by the shore. II. xi. 5-9. 

The chief questions which arise are two. 

1. In what manner can the description given by 
Homer of the several parts be combined into a self- 
consistent whole ? 

2. In what manner can that description be reconciled 
with the actual geography of the plain of Troy under • 
stood, as it best may, from its present condition ? 

The first of these two questions presents no in 
surmountable difficulty. 

We have to imagine an irregular oblong lying north 
and south ; the north end formed by the coast and the 
Greek line of ships and cantonments, from that of 
Achilles on the west to that of Ajax on the east, run- 
ning along it ; the eastern side, by Simoeis ; the western 
by Scamandros, with rough and steep banks above, and 
with marshy lands near the mouth. The southern part 
of the plain is closed by the roots of Ida ; and in the 
south-western corner lies the city with a gate south- 
wards towards the hill, and towards Dardania which lay 
within its recesses ; also a gate (the Scaian Gate), with 
the ground descending towards the plain northwards. 

Passing from the north towards this gate, and having 
on the right hand the river, we come along a waggon- 
road to the wild fig-tree, where is the mound or tomb 
of Ilos, used apparently as a place of observation, like 
Batieia and the tomb of Aisuetes 1 , at the other end of 

1 II. ii. 793- 






47 '% JU VENT US MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the plain. This is hard by the river. We then have 
the Scaian Gate on the left- and farther on are the 
two fountains of the Scamandros, near to which Hector 
passes, in making the circuit of the city. 

It is plain, that there was a communication between 
the rivers; but probably one dry in summer; and we 
may take notice that it was not in the fierce Scaman- 
dros, but in Simoeis, that there lay both heroes and their 
spoils ; and this in the dust, not in the waters, as Virgil 
has vividly, but carelessly, represented K 

The ford of Xanthos we must understand to be a 
ford leading to the westward, not one crossed between 
the city and the camp. With these suppositions, the 
topography of the plain appears to be self-consistent. 

The best examination I have been able to make of 
the second question leads me to the conclusion that 
the description of Homer cannot be accurately fitted to 
the natural features of the plain, as they now are, or 
even as we can probably suppose them to have been 
some three thousand years ago. 

There is no site near the two fountains, on which 
the city can have been placed, of such a nature as to 
allow of the threefold circuit ascribed to Hector flying, 
and to Achilles pursuing him. 

The general idea conveyed by the Iliad of the dis- 
tance between the city and the encampment is, that it 
was short. After the second Battle, in Book viii. 
Hector holds an Assembly. The Trojans had pressed 
upon the Greek entrenchment, and their gathering is 
away from the ships, voacpL ve&v (v. 490) ; but this 
seems to be explained by what follows as meaning 
simply clear of the field of battle, whereon lay the dead 
1 JEn. i. 100. 



XIII.] THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER. 473 

bodies. And it is expressly called c near ' (eyyvs) that is, 
near the ships, in II. ix. 232. But Hector proceeds to 
give directions for fetching oxen and sheep, with wine 
and corn, from Ilion for the immediate repast ; and here- 
with the wood for cooking and for watchfires (505-507). 

Again, in II. viii. 532, Hector says, c to-morrow we 
shall see whether Diomed will drive me from the ships 
to the wall (evidently of the city), or whether I shall 
slay and spoil him/ Now the idea of the pursuit from 
the ships to the wall and the corresponding movement 
of the armies, are wholly inapplicable to a distance of 
five or six or more miles. 

On the whole, the length of the plain, and the dis- 
tance of the two fountains from the shore, are not 
in harmony with the descriptions of the forward and 
retrograde operations of the armies which took place 
on the great day of battles, ending with the unwilling 
retirement of the Sun in II. xviii. 239. Other incon- 
sistencies of a like nature might be pointed out. 

On the other hand, the number of the natural fea- 
tures pourtrayed, and the actual correspondence of most 
of them, when taken individually, with those we now 
discern, establish the general authenticity of the scene. 
They also lead to the conclusion that Homer may have 
seen it in person ; or may, by the power of a vigorous 
imagination, have conceived its general character, and 
the relative position of the points, from the narratives 
of eye-witnesses. 

But it seems plain, that he did not sing either on the 
spot, or to persons minutely acquainted with the topo- 
graphy ; and not unlikely, that he generalised his mate- 
rials, and used them with a certain licence, as a poet, 
for the purposes of his art, 



474 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Lastly: I cannot but observe the analogy between 
this loose placement of objects, each of which singly 
had been vividly conceived, and the indefinite method 
of handling geographical points on a large scale, in the 
Outer Voyage of the Odyssey. In the latter case we 
are morally certain that he spoke at secondhand ; and 
this tends to diminish the unlikelihood that the Song 
of Troy was composed without personal experience of 
the spot to aid the work. 



Section III. The Outer Geography. 

The geography of Greek experience, as exhibited by 
Homer, is limited, speaking generally, to the iEgean 
and its coasts, with the Propontis as its limit in the 
North-east, with Crete for a southern boundary, and 
with the addition of the western coast of the peninsula 
and its islands, as far northward as the Leucadian rock. 
Respecting that rock, and respecting the conformation 
of Corfu (Scherie) and the shape of Ithaca, Homer had 
some accurate information. But a visit to that region 
in 1858-9 convinced me that the Poet, who described 
the view of Corfu 1 from the north as lying on the sea 
like a shield, never could have seen it ; that he was not 
personally acquainted with the topography of Ithaca; 
that he guessed at, and over-estimated, its size ; and, as 
is demonstrable from several passages in the Odyssey 2 , 
that he has given it a wrong relative position. 

1 Od. v. 281. 

2 Especially Od. iv. 844-847 and Od. ix. 25-26; lines which it 
has in vain been attempted to force into conformity with actual 
geography. 






XIII.] THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER. 475 

Beyond the limits I have named, all ordinary navi- 
gation was conducted by the Phoenicians; and upon 
these mariners, possibly in a few cases on their settlers 
or colonists in Greece, Homer must have depended for 
his information. At any period, such information could 
only give rise to very inaccurate geographical results. 
But we cannot even expect a resemblance to the actual 
face of earth, in a case where not only are the points 
described by those who would naturally seek both to 
excite and to deter, but where they could be nowhere 
arranged and digested, except only in the brain of the 
Poet, ideally compounding in the mind what fell upon 
the ear. 

It appears to me, that interpreters have been wholly 
wrong, when they have laboriously strained their endea- 
vours to fit the Outer Geography of Homer to the actual 
surface of the globe. Unwilling to recognise error in his 
descriptions, they have closed their eyes to much really 
indisputable evidence of it that the text supplies ; and 
have, after a sort, assigned to him geographical know- 
ledge which he did not possess, at the expense of that 
mental self-consistency, and that plastic power, with 
both of which he was endowed in a degree never sur- 
passed among the sons of men. It was no reproach to 
him, if he believed in a great sea, connecting the Adriatic 
and the Euxine ; but it would have been at variance 
with all the rules of his mental action, if he had spoken 
without any definite meaning, when he treats of sailing 
and floating distances, of the direction of the wind, or 
of the position of the stars : if he had forgotten his dis- 
tinction between land of the continent and island, or 
if he had placed the sunrise in the West. 

No doubt his descriptions are very vague in some 



476 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

cases, and especially as to the Island of Calypso. The 
fact seems to be, that he was misled not only by false- 
hood, but by truth. When informants, speaking of the 
same region, described it as one of all but perpetual 
day, and also as one of night all but perpetual, although 
both these statements were true, he had not the key to 
their truth in the annual revolution of the earth com- 
bined with the declension of its axis from the perpendi- 
cular ; and thus he could only seek refuge in vagueness 
from contradiction. Again, when he heard of great sea- 
currents, which set through the Bosphorus, the Straits 
of Messina, the Straits of Yenikale, and the Straits of 
Gibraltar respectively, what means could he possess, 
considering the palpable points of resemblance, of effec- 
tually separating each one of these from the others? 
Hence it is, as we shall find, that he carries his Thri- 
nakie (or Sicily) to the immediate vicinity of the Bos- 
phorus, consecrates it to the Sun, and places there the 
Oxen and the Nymphs belonging to that deity. 

The proper object of our search is, not a forced ac- 
commodation of Homer's conceptions to a basis of fact 
with which he was unacquainted, but simply a copy, if 
we can get it, of the map, which he constructed in his 
brain from the materials supplied by Phoenician dis- 
course or legend. And the proper mode of search must 
be, to take for our primary authority his own state- 
ments of distance, direction, and physical features ; and 
then, but only in subordination to this rule, to see 
where and how far they fit any portion of what actually 
exists j moreover, whether they so correspond with it as 
it is situate in its proper place, or as he has arbitrarily 
transplanted it to some other. 

There are fractions of border-land, between the Inner 



XIII.] THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER, 477 

or home 3 and the Outer or wholly foreign sphere, which 
receive somewhat of a mixed treatment. To this group 
Scherie belongs: and the land of the Lotos-eaters possibly 
may be but another phase of Egypt. Epirus again, and 
the country of the Glactophagoi and other nations, over 
whom Zeus directs his view at the outset of the Thir- 
teenth Iliad 1 , belong to this zone, as does Phoenicia, 
if not Cyprus. 

Our data for constructing an Homeric map of the 
Outer Geography seems to be chiefly as follows : — 

i. The points of the horizon, marked for morning 
and evening respectively, connect themselves with two 
of Homer's winds. His Zephuros is akin to zophos, 
and knephas, the darkness 2 : his Euros to eos 3 the 
morning, and perhaps to his euroeis, an epithet used 
by him four times only, and in each case to describe 
the Underworld. Sunrise and sunset, with him, verge, 
though not perhaps with uniform precision, to the 
south of East, and to the north of West respectively. 

2. And such are the directions, from which Zephuros 
and Euros blow. But it is plain, as Zephuros blows 
from Thrace upon the iEgean 4 , that his range also 
approximates to the north pole on the western side : 
and further, that, as Boreas blows from the same 
quarter, he takes up the next arc of the horizon, and 
may be defined as a north-north-east wind ; a title which 
the same wind, as far as my memory serves me, still 
bears in the Adriatic. Again, Euros and Notos, the third 
and fourth of Homer's winds, are associated together as 
a pair, raising the iEgean from the South nearly as 

1 II. xiii. 3-6. 2 Buttmann, Lexil. in voc. Ke\aiv6s. 

3 Liddell and Scott, in voc. * II. ix. 4. 



47 8 JUVENTUS MUNDT. [CHAP. 

Boreas and Zephuros catch it from the North. The 
greater portion however of the arc covered by the 
southern pair is to the east of the Pole, by the nor- 
thern pair to the west. It is not probable that Homer 
had names for winds from all points of the compass, 
or that he did more than mark inartificially the direc- 
tions from which the winds of his actual experience 
principally blew. Notos may probably be a South 
wind, blowing from near that pole on either side: 
Euros is between Notos and the east. 

3. Next to these, we have to mark Homer's mea- 
sures of sea distances. Of extended land distances, 
he has no measures at all ; a separate proof of the very 
limited range of the land experience of the Greeks. 

(a) H omer measures the time of a voyage from Troas 
to Phthia; and from Crete to Egypt 1 . The result 
of these measurements is, to give some ninety miles 
as a good average day's journey of a ship using sails 
or oars, under favourable circumstances. With peculiar 
good fortune, that distance might be exceeded. 

(b) In a floating or drift passage on the waves, we 
can trace Homer's idea of what was possible by the 
supposed transit of Odysseus from a point near Crete 
to the Thesprotoi. It appears to be about half the 
rate of a ship's motion, or two miles an hour. 

(c) The floating of a raft may probably be taken at 
a little more, or two and a half. 

Thus we should have ninety-six miles, forty-eight 
miles, and sixty miles a day as our results respectively. 

These are, of course, but rude measures, yet they 
are not unimportant aids in our inquiry. 

(d) The rate of a Scherian ship is described by com- 

1 II. ix. 362. Od. xiv. 257. 



XIII.] THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER. 479. 

parison with a bird's flight, or a four-horse chariot 
scouring the plain. c It would go/ says Alkinoos, ( to 
Euboea (or perhaps to Eubcea and back) in a day.' We 
cannot, I think, put it at less than thrice the speed 
of the ordinary ship. 

The key to the great contrast between the Outer 
Geography and the facts of nature lies in the belief 
of Homer, that a great sea occupied the space, where 
we know the heart of the European Continent to lie. 
Proofs and indications of this belief are to be found, 
such as to place it beyond denial or even doubt. 

(a) For example, we find one of these in the voyage 
of the Phaiakes to Eubcea, which was certainly not 
supposed to take place round the whole coast of the 
Greek Peninsula, for the Phaiakes are supposed to hang 
as strangers on the outer skirt of the Greek world, not 
to traverse all its chief waters h It must therefore 
have been a passage by a supposed northern sea. 

(b) When Hermes travels from Olympos to the Island 
of Calypso, he passes over Pieria, and then sweeps 
down upon the sea 2 . That sea must therefore have been 
in the north or north-east. The journey of Here over 
Pieria to Emathia and Lemnos 3 shows the acquaint- 
ance of the Poet with the general direction of those 
countries. 

(c) The Shades of the Suitors, on their way to the 
Underworld, take a northerly direction, past the Leu- 
cadian rock, in a journey towards the stream of Ocean, 
and the gates of the Sun 4 . Can there be a clearer 
declaration than this that they were to pass into the 



1 Od. vii. 19-26. 2 Od. v. 43-58. 

3 II. xiv. 225-230. * Od. xxiv. 11-14. 



4§0 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

east along the Adriatic — apparently avoiding the known 
land of Greece on their journey ? 

Next, Homer appears to have compounded into one 
group two sets of Phoenician reports concerning the 
entrance from without to the Thalassa or Medi- 
terranean : one of them referring to the Straits of 
Messina, with their Scylla and Charybdis; the other 
to the Bosphorus and its Planctai. It is also very 
easy to believe, that with each of these narrow passages 
he associated another strait beyond it at a distance 
of several hundred miles, namely the Straits of Gib- 
raltar with the first, and the Straits of Yenikale with 
the second : and the striking resemblance of these last 
to one another, in the cardinal point of presenting 
at all times an inward flowing current, would tend 
to favour the confusion. The Ocean was, in Homer's 
system, the feeder of the Sea : he tells us in the Odyssey 
distinctly enough of one sea-passage to the Ocean, but he 
nowhere glances at the existence of any second access. 

This Ocean mouth, to which he conducts Odysseus, 
is unequivocally placed in the East, near the island of 
Aiaia, and the rising Sun. To the left and North, lie 
the people of the Kimmerians hid in fog, for which the 
Black Sea is even now said to be remarkable. Kirke is 
the daughter of Aietes,to whose country Jason had sailed 
through the Bosphorus. And giving the darkness a place 
near the dawn is a proceeding necessary to complete 
the idea of morning. The mouth of the Underworld is 
farther southward, inasmuch as Odysseus is carried to it 
by the Wind Boreas, up the Ocean-Stream. The whole 
of his voyage, up to this point, is accomplished without 
his being obliged to traverse any dangerous narrows. 
But, pursued by the vengeance of Poseidon, who rules 






XIII.] THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER. 48 1 

the outer or Phoenician Thai ass a, he eschews re- 
turning by the same open, lengthened, and menacing 
route. Kirke accordingly apprises him of a short 
passage, by which he may soon find himself once more 
within the margin of the Greek or iEgean waters. 
This is the Bosphorus; near which the Poet plants 
Thrinakie, an island evidently projected in his mind 
on the basis of ideas derived from Sicily, and with it 
the Scylla and Charybdis of the Straits of Messina. 

This transportation of western features to the East 
is further illustrated by the Homeric treatment of 
Atlas. For, associated though he be in general tradi- 
tion with the coast of Africa, and the Straits of Gib- 
raltar, he is with Homer the Father of Calypso, whose 
island plainly lies in the northern and eastern waters, 
since it seems to be Boreas who brings Odysseus from 
thence to Ithaca. 

The general result of this blending is, that the supposed 
Ocean mouth in the Euxine gets the benefit of the open 
sea-route which really leads to the Straits of Gibraltar ; 
and the real Ocean mouth at Gibraltar has credit for 
being placed in a northern latitude and a distant eastern 
longitude ; while the Faro and the Bosphorus, in 
consequence of this identification, are brought near to 
one another : each group of reports thus throwing 
its own separate attributes into the common stock. 

The Bosphorus must be considered not as belonging 
to the Greek world, but yet as fast linked to it, and 
therefore as a point fixed by practical experience, and 
not to be removed. And even if we could not give 
probable ground for Homer's having placed the Faro 
near it, the fact would still be undeniable from the 
evidence of the text, and must be recognised in any 

1 i 






483 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

transcript of the Outer Geography which we may 
attempt. 

The island of Calypso, again, must be in the north : 

(a) From the direction taken, as we have seen, by 
Hermes. 

(b) Because fire is kept burning there, which indicates 
a climate requiring it. Kirke has none in her island \ 

(c) Because it is the omphalos 2 , or central point 
of a vast sea, spreading on all sides, with which nothing 
to the east, west, or south of Greece corresponds 
either in nature, or in the ideas of Homer. 

(d) Because the meaning of her name, the Concealer, 
and the length of the voyage back to Scherie, indicate 
her dwelling as belonging to a region wholly untravelled 
and unknown to the Greeks. 

(e) Because Odysseus 3 is apparently carried to it by 
Notos. And the general rule of the Wanderings is, 
that southerly winds bear Odysseus away from home, 
while northerly ones carry him towards it. 

"Again, the association of Calypso with the Eastern 
mythology prevents us from placing her in the North- 
west, where lies the country of the Laistrugones ; and 
keeps her in relation with the east rather than the 
west of North. 

The island of Aiaie is bound to an eastward position 
by the name and character of Kirke; by its relation 
to Aietes, and thus to Jason, and his voyage; by the 
names of Helios, the father of Calypso, and of her 
mother Perse, an appellation savouring, in Homer, of the 
far East, to which the Persians of that day belonged 4 , 

1 Od. v. 60 ; x. 210 seqq. 2 Od. i. 50. 

3 Od. xii. 426, 447. 

4 Rawlinson, Anc. Monarchies, vol. iv. p. 349. 



XIII.] THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER. 483 

by its being the point of Sunrise; and by the residence 
of Dawn. 

All particular conjecture respecting any position for 
these islands is, however, vague : the several points of 
the scheme of Homer in the Outer Geography were 
determined by relation to each other broadly conceived, 
and by directions generally taken, rather than by any 
attempt at exactitude even in mental measurement. 

With these data, I now proceed to note the several 
stages of the Voyage of Odysseus. 

1. From Troy to the Kikones on the north coast 
of the ^Egean; in a region strictly belonging to the 
Inner Geography \ 

2. From the Kikones, Boreas (N. N. E. wind) carries 
Odysseus to Cape Malea, prevents him from rounding 
it, and drives him out to sea, where nine days of bad 
or plaguy winds (olooi anemoi) bring him to the 
land of the Lotos-Eaters, which appears to be like an 
Egypt in a new dress. As five days 2 drive a ship from 
Crete to Egypt, we must suppose that nine imply some 
considerable westing, and place the Lotos-Eaters on the 
African coast along the Syrtis Major. We are now in 
the Outer Sphere 3 . 

3. From the Lotophagoi to the Kuklopes, we have 
no direct guide afforded by the text, except that it was 
a voyage onward, and that the Kuklopes live on a 
mainland 4 , not an island. From this mainland they 
had, at an earlier date, displaced their neighbours the 
Phaiakes, who, being a nautical people, passed over and 
settled in Scherie. Therefore we are probably to 



1 Od. ix. 39. 2 Od. xiv. 253. 

3 Od. ix. 67, 80-84. 4 Od. vi. 4-8. 

I i 2 






484 < JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



CHAP. 



place them in Iapugia, the heel of Italy, over against 
Scherie \ 

4. From the land of the Kuklopes, perhaps called 
by Homer Hupereie 2 , Odysseus proceeds to the island 
Aiolie 3 , and Aiolos gives him a Zephyr (N. W. wind) 
which would carry him home to Ithaca. Therefore the 
island of Aiolos (whether related to Stromboli as its 
prototype or not) lies to the north and west of Ithaca, 
with a clear sea-passage between 4 . Then a tempest 
drives him back to Aiolie, after nine days of Zephuros, 
and when the ships were in full sight of Ithaca 5 . Thus 
we have a very good measurement from the direct 
evidence of the text : and Aiolie lies at sea and at from 
eight hundred to a thousand miles from Ithaca, in a 
north-westerly direction. 

5. From Aiolie, Odysseus comes, in seven days of 
rowing, to Laistrugonie, the city of Lamos, evidently 
far north, as it is the land where one day runs into 
another 6 . We are now seventeen days from Ithaca in 
a direction north and west. There can be little doubt 
that the prototype of this place was supplied by a tra- 
dition brought from the north-western main. The 
very marked description of the harbour, and the epithet 
(aipu) applied to the city, correspond closely, I am told, 
with one or more of those on the south Devonshire and 
south Cornish coasts. But the site in the open sea, and 
the description of the continuous day, might more 
properly be taken from the Faro Islands. The size 
of the people, especially of the women 7 ? suggests a 
Scandinavian race • the want of cultivation 8 a position 

1 Od. ix. 105. 2 Od. vi. 4. 3 Od. ix. 565 ; x. 1. 

i Od. x. 25, 46. 5 Od. x. 28, 54. 6 Od. x. 80-83. 

7 Od. x. 113. 8 Od. x. 98. 



I 



XIII.] THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER. 485 

in the far north, and with a climate suited for pas- 
ture, not for tillage. 

6. From Laistrugonie we pass, without indication, 
to Aiaie 1 . I have already shown that this island is 
absolutely fixed, according to the mind of Homer, in 
the East, as Aiolie is in the West. It cannot be in 
the remote North, because no fire is used. It is not 
very likely to lie to the south of East, because of the 
neighbourhood of Kimmerian fog. This is a difficulty 
for Homer, since his Dawn ought to be somewhat to 
the south of East. He tries (it may seem) to escape, 
like some of his Trojan heroes, in a fog; for he de- 
clares that, on arriving here, Odysseus could make out 
nothing about his position relatively to the Dark and 
the Dawn, the Sunset and the Sunrise % . This dif- 
ficulty of course cannot wholly be removed : but it 
rather bears upon latitudes, than on longitude or dis- 
tance eastwards. I place Aiaie at a spot near the 
Colchis of Aietes; adding that we are by no means 
to assert positively that the island lies to the northward 
of East, even though the balance of evidence may lie 
in that direction. 

From Aiaie, one day's favouring wind takes Odysseus 
to the Ocean-mouth, hard by the Kimmerian darkness 3 . 
It is Boreas that carries him southward, or up the 
stream, it is hard to say which 4 . After landing, the 
party pursue the course of the shore, in the same di- 
rection, to the entrance of the Underworld ; we know 
not at what distance. Thence they return to Aiaie. 
No fresh indication is given. 

7. From Aiaie to the Island of the Sirens. No 

1 Od. x. 133-135. 2 Od. x. 189-192. 

3 Od. xi. 1-19. * Od. x. 507. 



486 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

specific indication is afforded us ; except that apparently 
the passage is a short one. We are now within the 
virtual limits of the eastern and southern Euxine 1 . 

8. From the Sirens, by Scylla and Charybdis, leaving 
the (neighbouring) Planctai aside, to Thrinakie. This 
evidently is also a short passage 2 . Odysseus is here 
detained by Notos (S. S. W.) chiefly, but also by Euros ; 
both of them blowing from the southern hemisphere. 

9. From Thrinakie, Notos having ceased to blow, he 
is able to pursue the homeward route. The ship founders 
in a violent gale from the North - west 3 . Notos 
carries him back in one night to Scylla and Charybdis, 
which he traverses in safety 4 after great peril; and 
then, drifting on, apparently with the same wind, he 
reaches, on the tenth day, Ogugie, the Island of 
Calypso, the quasi-central point of the great (northern) 
sea \ 

10. From Ogugie to Scherie ; never called an island, 
but called the land of the Phaiakes, which may be on 
account of its size, for the Poet appears to have con- 
sidered it as an island 6 . This is a raft voyage, and the 
eighteenth day brings him within view of Scherie. Then 
comes the storm, with a hurricane of all the winds 7 . 
The raft founders 8 ; and Odysseus drifts, with a wind 
(Boreas) sent by Athene, to Scherie, where he arrives 
on the third day 9 . 

In this passage he is ordered to observe the stars, 

1 Od. xii. 149-154, 165-167 ; also 39, and xxiii. 326. 

2 Od. xii. 201, 261, 262; xi. 166, 167; xxiii. 327-329. 

3 Od. xii. 403. * Od. xii. 424, 427-430, 442-446. 
5 Od. xii. 447, 448 ; xxiii. 333 ; i. 50. 6 Od. vi. 204. 
7 Od. v. 263, 278, 293, 331, 345. 8 Od. v. 370. 

9 Od. v. 382-398. 



XIII.] THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER. 487 

and to steer with Arctos looking over against, or op- 
posite, his left 1 - that is to say, on his right. The 
exact phrase used is not a common one in Homer, and 
it has usually been translated c on his right. 5 If this were 
correct, the island of Calypso must lie in the north- 
west. This would not so well agree with the winds 
indicated, though not expressed- namely, Boreas for 
the passage home, and Notos for the passage from the 
Bosphorus to Ogugie. Nor would it agree as well 
with the time allowed for reaching Ogugie from the 
Bosphorus. Besides, we have to keep in mind the fact, 
that all other associations draw Calypso eastward. 

1 1 . From Scherie to Ithaca ; a passage of some six- 
teen or eighteen hours in the hawk-ship; beginning 
early in the day, and ending before the next dawn 2 . 

Allowing for the rapidity of the voyage, it is plain 
that Homer placed his Scherie farther north than the 
original Corfu, which may be eighty miles from Ithaca. 
Eighteen days of raft voyage, with an allowance for 
the distance of Scherie, when first seen, will place 
Ogugie at more than eleven hundred miles from Ithaca. 
Ten days of floatage from the Bosphorus will give five 
hundred miles, or thereabouts, from that point. We 
have already found that Laistrugonie is near seven- 
teen hundred miles from Ithaca. All these routes are 
over the open sea. Speaking generally, Homer gives to 
the voyage of Odysseus all the world he knows of, 
lying from South, round by West and North, and then 
far to the East of Greece ; except only what in terms 
of slight outline he gives to the tour of Menelaos, 
between the East and South 3 . The two routes diverge 

1 Od. v. 277. 2 Od. xiii. 18, 78, 86, 93-95. 

3 Od. iv. 80-85. 



488 r JUVENTUS MUNDI. 7 [CHAP. 

at the Malean promontory 1 . Perhaps it is because the 
real Phoenicia lies on the border of the Outer world, in 
the south, that he has given us an idealised Phoenician 
people upon the border-line towards the north, and the 
name Scherie is possibly Surie (Syria), travestied for 
the ear, as the Phaiakes are the Phoinikes. 

The general arrangements of Homer show that he 
thought the Earth and Sea had a great extension north- 
wards, but give no idea of great distances in the longi- 
tudinal line, or from east to west. How far he carried 
it to the south, we have no means of judging. We 
know that the Shield of Achilles represented the form 
of the Earth, with the River Okeanos for its rim 2 . 
Now a shield in general is sometimes compared with 
the moon by Homer ; but he does not say the full moon : 
and the prevailing epithets for the shield would tend to 
show an oval form, or one adapted to cover the entire 
figure 3 ; the same form as that indicated in the formula 
of the Spartan mother for a soldier son: c bring it, or be 
brought upon it.' The natural shape of the hide, of 
which the name is often applied to a shield, likewise 
seems to favour this belief. And such a form of the 
shield apparently agrees with the figure which the de- 
scriptions of the Outer Geography tend to give to the 
Earth, in conjunction with the representation of the 
Shield of Achilles. 

The noble conception of a great circumfluent River 
was probably founded on a combination of a double set 
of reports ; the one, of great currents setting into the 
Thalassa, or Mediterranean Sea, and seeming to feed 
it, such as those of Yenikale, the Bosphorus, Gibraltar ; 

1 Od. iii. 318. 2 II. xix. 374. 

3 II. xi. 32 ; xxv. 646 ; and xiii. 130 ; ix. 537 ; x. 15. 



XIII.] THE GEOGRAPHY OF HOMER. 489 

the other, of Outer Waters, such as the Caspian, the 
Persian Gulph, and probably the Red S^a. 

The name Kimmeria is derived by some from the 
Arabic kahm, black; Maiotis from maneth^ meaning 
death 1 ; and Tartaros is taken to be the reduplication 
of the tar in tartk y the Persian word for darkness, 
The seeming contradiction of perpetual light and per- 
petual darkness in the north is of course removed for 
us, who know that both reports are true, but for different 
seasons of the year. 

1 Welsford on the English Language, pp. 75, 76, 88. Bleek, 
Persian Vocab. (Grammar, p. 170). 






CHAPTER XIV. 

Plots, Characters, and Similes. 
Section I. The Plots of the Poems ; especially of the Iliad. 

The works of Homer are not constructed upon 
speculative models. His is the fresco painting of 
poetry. He is a man singing to men, and to men 
immensely his inferiors. He is perhaps more under the 
conditions of the orator, than of the modern poet. He 
cannot store up or record his thought ; there is but one 
depository for it, upon the living tablets of the heart, 
and within its deep recesses. Hence, in both the Iliad 
and the Odyssey, we have that rush and exuberance of 
life, which result from the common action between the 
Bard and his hearers, the separate currents of whose 
existences seem to be thrown into one great volume, 
never exhausted, though gently slackened from time 
to time to meet the conditions of our nature. 

He is also an artist, living by his art; addressing 
himself by his genius to universal nature, but by his 
circumstances to his country, and to the several squares 
of that tesselated nation, each with its local patriotism 
and limited traditions, as well as with its portion in 
the common inheritance of Hellenism. 



PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 49 1 

Viewed in the light of considerations such as these, 
the plot of the Odyssey is simple, without knots or 
breaks of texture, and generally well-devised if not 
uniformly sustained ; but that of the Iliad is, as far as 
I may presume to judge, in the main a consummate 
work of art. The mechanism is double throughout. 
But the train of action on Olympos never clashes with 
that in Troas, and nowhere impairs the free, natural, 
and thoroughly human character of that part of the 
business, which is in the hands of mortals. At the 
same time, it is so contrived as to assist the Poet in 
overcoming one of his greatest difficulties j which was, 
to maintain a clear and ample martial superiority on 
the part of the Greek chieftains, and yet to give them 
in Troy a thoroughly worthy and sufficient object for 
their prowess. What in this respect was lacking in the 
Trojan leaders, has been supplied by the Theotechny, or 
divine movement of the Poem. 

The most favourite topic of objectors to the plot of 
the Iliad has been the length of time during which 
Achilles is kept out of sight. From the Second to the 
Eighth Book inclusive, and again from the Twelfth to 
the Fifteenth, he does not appear upon the stage. 

Now it is by this withdrawal of Achilles that Homer 
obtains scope for his other heroes, who were dwarfed 
by the presence of that colossal figure. The moment he 
appears they become insignificant; they are almost 
invisible in the blaze of his light. But, by means of 
his absence, Diomed, Ajax, Agamemnon, Idomeneus, 
and likewise Odysseus in the Doloneia, and Menelaos in 
the Seventeenth Book as well as in the Third, have each 
their opportunities of distinction. In this manner a 
double object is gained. First, satisfaction is given to 






492 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the local sentiment of the parts of Greece, with which 
these heroes are severally connected. In the second 
place, by this series of personages, embodying the idea 
and practice of martial prowess as it was commonly 
understood, Homer constructs, as it were, -a platform, 
on and from which he can build upwards the astonishing 
figure of his Achilles, for which the reader has been 
prepared by a propaideia, or preliminary course of great- 
ness, on the scale on which it commonly (as far as it is 
common at all) appears among men. 

But perhaps the most emphatic confutation of such 
objections is to be found in the total failure of all 
attempts to combine the ideas of the objectors into 
anything like one positive sense or view, or to improve 
the Iliad by the process of excision. While this negative 
criticism treads its hopeless and dreary circle of doubt 
without progress or achievement, the Poem itself con- 
firms and enlarges, from generation to generation, its 
hold upon civilised mankind ; and the translations in 
which it is (of necessity so imperfectly) represented, 
but which carry it beyond the limited circle of Greek 
scholarship, multiply in this nineteenth century of ours, 
and in the very focus of its keenest activity, at a rate 
beyond all precedent. 

The main steps of the action of the Iliad seem to be 
these. Upon the Wrong perpetrated by Agamemnon 
arises the Wrath, and thereupon the Secession, of the 
prime hero, in whose marvellous character the Greek 
nationality is to find its supreme satisfaction. And 
this character, not the fate of Troy, is the true central 
thread of the great epic. On the absence of Achilles, 
the Greeks, after a panic and recovery, decide upon 
doing as well as they can without him. Though their 



XIV 



.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 493 



superior prowess is fully maintained, they are losers on 
the whole • and they seek the aid of a rampart, which 
previously they had disdained. Here is the first marked 
triumph of the Wrath. Driven back upon their works, 
they are themselves threatened with a siege. The 
infirm spirit of Agamemnon gives way, and he a second 
time utters counsels of flight, to which the chivalrous 
spirit of the other chiefs will not submit. A mission 
to the tent of Achilles is substituted, offering splendid 
gifts and the maid Briseis ; a reparation morally imper- 
fect, for there is no confession of the wrong. To the 
inflamed and inexorable spirit of Achilles they afford 
matter for fresh exasperation, and the Envoys return 
baffled in their aim. Here is the second triumph of the 
Wrath. Not till the ships are about to burn, will he 
entertain the thought to interfere. 

The Greeks fight again; and, a second time, with 
martial superiority, yet with an unfavourable issue. 
The rampart is broken by the brave Sarpedon, a chief 
be it remarked of Greek associations, and apparently 
the best warrior fighting on the side of Troy. Fire 
reaches the fleet. But Achilles does not go forth. In 
his towering pride, he will even now only send Patro- 
clos, a semblance of himself; and this, too, with the 
vindictive wish that they two, all else having perished, 
may alone dash down the sacred battlements of Troy 1 . 

This, the third great triumph of the Wrath, seems 
also to mark the point of its overflow into excess ; and 
the moral 2 order must avenge itself, in the divine de- 

1 II. xvi. 97-100. 

2 See a fuller discussion on the Plots of the two Poems in 
Studies on Homer, vol. iii. Aoidos, Sect. 5. 






494 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

crees, and through the persons of men. By divine inter- 
vention, after acts of might unsurpassed by the other 
chiefs, Patroclos is slain, and Achilles receives a punish- 
ment, in recesses of his nature more profound even 
than those penetrated and possessed by the Wrath ; those 
recesses, wherein dwelt his intense affection for his 
friend. That which was to have been the last triumph 
of his wounded pride, namely, that not he but his 
deputy should repel the attack which all the other chiefs 
had failed to baffle, now becomes the cause of an agony 
so intense, as by far to surpass, both in duration and 
in intensity, the emotions he had suffered from anger. 

The remainder of the fiery current, thus diverted 
from the Greeks, he turns upon the Trojans. When he 
goes forth as a warrior, we seem to feel as if we had seen 
or heard of no warriors before. The King repents, and 
makes restitution. Hector is slain. The Greeks have 
been punished for the wrong which they did, or allowed. 
Achilles has been punished for allowing indignation 
to degenerate into revenge. The mutilation and dis- 
honouring of the body of his slain antagonist now 
became to him a second idol, stirring the great deep of 
his passions, and bewildering his mind. Thus, in 
paying off his old debt to the eternal laws, he has 
already contracted a new one. Again, then, his proud 
will must be taught to bow. Hence, as Mr. Penn has 
well shown 1 , the necessity of the Twenty-fourth Book, 
with its beautiful machinery. 

On the other side, the death of Hector opens the 
way for the retribution due to the great guilt of Troy. 
The recovery of his remains is a tribute to his personal 

1 Primary Argument of the Iliad, pp. 241-273. 






XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 495 



piety; and, after the fierce excitement of the action 
of the Poem, sheds a softened light upon its close. If 
the plot of the Iliad is to be condemned, where is the 
epic that can claim either admiration or acquittal ? 



Section II. Some Characters 1 of the Poems. 
1. Achilles. 

The character of Achilles, as I view it, differs from 
that of all other heroes of poetry and romance in these 
respects : it is more intense ; it is more colossal in 
scale ; it ranges over a wider compass, from the borders 
of savagery to the most tender emotions and the most 
delicate refinements. Yet all its parts are so accurately 
graduated, and so nicely interwoven, that the whole 
tissue is perfectly consistent with itself. 

The self-government of such a character is indeed 
very partial. But any degree of self-government is a 
wonder, when we consider over what volcanic forces it 
is exercised. It is a constantly recurring effort at rule 
over a constantly recurring rebellion; and there is a 
noble contrast between the strain put upon his strength, 
in order to suppress his own passion, and the masterful 
ease with which he prostrates all his enemies in the 
field. The command, always in danger, is never wholly 
lost. It is commonly re-established by a supreme and 
desperate struggle; and sometimes, as in the first 
Assembly after the intervention of Athene 2 , we see 

1 The reader should, on the Greek characters of Homer, con- 
sult Col. Mure's History of Greek Literature, vol. i. 

2 II. i. 219-346. 



496 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

the tide of passion flowing to a point at which it re- 
sembles a horse that has gained its utmost speed, yet 
remains under the full control of its rider. 

Ferocity is an element in his character, but is not 
its base. It is always grounded in, and springing 
from, some deeper sentiment, of which it is the mani- 
festation. His ferocity towards the Greeks grows out 
of the intensity of his indignation at the foul wrong 
done, with every heightening circumstance of outward 
insult, not merely to him, but in his person to every 
principle of honour, right, and justice, in the matter of 
Briseis ; as well as to the real attachment he felt for 
her. His ferocity towards Hector is the counterpart 
and recoil of the intensity of his passionate love for 
the dead Patroclos. 

Magnitude, grandeur, majesty, form the framework 
on which Homer has projected the character of Achilles. 
And these are in their tiuest forms ; those forms which 
contract to touch the smaller, as they expand to grasp 
the greater things. The scope of this character is like 
the sweep of an organ over the whole gamut, from the 
lowest bass to the highest treble, with all its diversities 
of tone and force as well as pitch. From the fury of 
the first Assembly, he calms down to receive with 
courtesy the pursuivants who demand Briseis. From 
the gentle pleasure of the lyre, he kindles into the 
stern excitement of the magnificent Debate of the 
Ninth Book. From his terrible vengeance against the 
torn limbs of Hector he melts into tears, at the 
view and the discourse of Piiam. The sea, that 
home of marvels, presents no wider, no grander con- 
trasts, nor offers us an image more perfect according 
to its kind in each of its varying moods. Foils, 



XIV. J PLOTS ', CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 497 

too, are employed with skill to exalt the hero. 
The half-animated bulk and strength of Ajax (who was 
also greatly beautiful 1 ) exhibit to us the mere clay of 
Achilles, without the vivifying fire. The beauty of 
Nireus 2 , wedded to effeminacy, sets off the trans- 
cendant, and yet manful and heroic, beauty of Achilles ; 
and the very ornaments of gold, which in Nastes the 
Carian 3 only suggest Asiatic luxury and relaxation, 
when they are borne on the person of the great Achaian 
hero, seem but a new form of tribute to his glorious 
manhood. 

2. Odysseus. 

The high quality of Homer's portraitures is in no 
way better apprehended, than by the clearness of the 
distinctions between the personages who most approxi- 
mate. Odysseus receives in the Odyssey a development, 
which raises him, as a protagonist, almost to the level 
of Achilles ; but in the Iliad, while he is separated from 
Nestor by some twenty years of juniority, these two 
characters bear a resemblance which some might mis- 
take for repetition. But, in truth, they are radically 
distinct, both in speech and action. Nestor's eloquence 
is gentle and flowing, with a decided flavour of egotism 
and of garrulity. That of Odysseus is masculine and 
compressed: when he refers to himself, it is only to 
enhance his own obligation, in a great crisis, to act 
as it demands 4 ; and he never wastes a word. The 
sagacity of Nestor is addressed to questions where calm 
judgment, and the weight given by age and great ex- 

1 Od. xi. 469. 2 II. ii. 671. 3 II. ii. 872. 

* II. ii. 259-264, 

Kk 



498 JUVENTUS MUNDL [CHAP, 

perience, are alone required j the interpositions of 
Odysseus are in cases, where vehement impulses and 
strong passions are to be encountered, and where 
the presence of mind, which can face a crisis, is indis- 
pensable. He checks and recalls the whole army from 
its tumultuous rush homewards; he undertakes the 
burden of the remonstrance and petition to Achilles. 
But the interposition of Nestor, in the great Debate of 
the First Book, is only employed by the Poet when 
the matter has already, by the direct interposition of 
Athene, been reduced to an issue of words alone. To 
untie a knot is the office of Nestor ; to stem a torrent, 
or scale a frowning barrier, is the business of Odysseus. 
Again, and more generally, Nestor heals differences by 
a soothing interposition, and offers suggestions : Odys- 
seus constructs wider plans, but the specialty of his 
case is this, that he executes what he designs. He has 
touched that period of life when the faculties of the 
mind are fully ripened, and the bodily powers are con- 
solidated, but not yet decayed. Nestor belongs to one 
more advanced; when the mind, without acquiring 
vigour, in the main retains it, but when the province 
of bodily action is narrowed by comparative infirmity, 
and the person becomes as it were a head without a 
hand, a dependent instead of a self-subsistent organism. 
The character of Odysseus, as a whole, is admirably 
balanced between daring and prudence, both of which 
are carried in him to the highest degree. The picture is 
however diversified by two occasions, on each of which 
he records his having failed in his usual circumspection. 
On visiting the cave of Poluphemos, his companions ad- 
vise him to be content with carrying off a supply of cheese, 
and retiring ; but he determines to remain and see the 



XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 3.99 

monster *, And after the escape from the cave and the 
re-embarkation, while his men try to keep him quiet, 
he persists in exasperating the Cyclops with his stinging 
addresses 2 . In both these cases we may discern a 
fault ; yet not a fault alone, but the irresistible aspira- 
tion of genius to measure itself with danger, and to 
pierce boldly into the unknown. 

Odysseus is represented as somewhat wanting in one 
element of the beauty of the Homeric hero; namely, 
amplitude of stature. Menelaos is taller by the head 
and shoulders 3 ; and the Cyclops despises him for his 
deficiency in height 4 . But that his frame was other- 
wise well developed and powerful is manifest, as he 
was more majestic than Menelaos when they sate 
down 5 ; and also from his wrestling on equal terms 
with the huge Ajax 6 , and from his extraordinary feats 
of strength and endurance in the Odyssey. But it is 
observable that, amidst the long list of epithets be- 
stowed upon him, none have reference to personal 
beauty, except when, in Scherie, Athene had endowed 
him with it in a manner, which seems to have gone 
much beyond mere restoration from his weather-beaten 
aspect 7. He seems to speak of himself, even among 
the Phaiakes, as not possessed of this special gift equally 
with them 8 . On the other hand, we ought perhaps to 
set the attachment of Calypso as tending in the opposite 
direction ; and when he returns to Ithaca, Athene dis- 
guises him by wrinkling his fair flesh, and by spoiling his 
hair, now auburn but elsewhere hyacinthine 9 . His age, 

1 Od. ix. 224. 2 Od. ix. 492-502. 3 II. iii. 210. 

4 Od. ix. 515. . 5 II. iii. 211. 6 II. xxiv. 709 seqq. 

7 Od. vi. 227-235. 8 Od. viii. 166-175. ■- 

9 Od. vi. 231; xiji. 29-9. 

K k 2 



50O JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

too, is of course to be taken into account. Perhaps it 
is on this ground that Homer may have meant to ascribe 
to him majesty, rather than simple beauty, of coun- 
tenance. 

Although a prudence ever wakeful, and sometimes 
leaning towards craft, is the most commonly noticed 
characteristic of Odysseus, and became in after ages 
the key-note of the character, it is in Homer only one 
of several features highly distinctive, by means of which 
the Poet has raised this extraordinary conception to 
something very near a parity of rank with his Achilles. 
Though he does not compete with the son of Peleus in 
his grand prerogatives, in each one of them he is left 
second to no other hero. He wrestles with Ajax in 
the Twenty-third Iliad, and beats him in the contest 
for the Arms of Achilles, thereby establishing for him- 
self the second place among the Greek chieftains. The 
depth of his passion, and the power of his eloquence, as 
they are exhibited in the encounter with Eurualos, if 
they are still behind Achilles in each point, are before 
those of every other Greek. But by way of compensation 
for their being only second, Homer has awarded to him 
a many-sidedness, such as is possessed by no other hero. 
He is a master not only in war, but in government, 
and in every industrial pursuit j and the sole approach 
that we find in the Poems to anything like Fine Art 
from the hand of a Greek, is in the bed 1 which he had 
wrought. There is yet another capacity in which Homer 
has assigned him a clear pre-eminence ; the capacity of 
father and husband, of a model of the domestic affec- 
tions. After an absence of near twenty years, he is 
still yearning for the day of escape from the arms of 
1 Od. xxiii. 195-201. 



J 



XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 50I 

a goddess, that he may return to his wife and child ; 
and the very smoke of Ithaca would be dear to his 
eyes \ Of the Odyssey this is the theme. But the 
Iliad, too, sustains by its slighter indications the sister 
poem j for he alone among the Greek chieftains de- 
sires to be known as the father of his son • and touch- 
ingly sets forth his sense of the hardship of being 
detained, even but a single month, away from a wife 2 . 
The faculty of tears is generally ascribed to the 
Greek chiefs and soldiery ; and the Poet did not think 
their susceptibility derogated from their manhood. But 
even here Odysseus has a specialty. This man of iron 
nerve and soul, who within the Horse's ribs saved the 
lives of his comrades by sternly compelling silence ; who 
in the cave of Poluphemos executed his vengeance, and 
then clung beneath the great ram as the blinded monster 
felt its back ; and who again gave place to a profound 
and inexorable wrath not only against the Suitors, but 
even against their helpless and miserable minions ; even 
this same man it is, who weeps at the recognition given 
of his return by the dog Argos in his twentieth year 3 . 

3. Agamemnon. 

The Agamemnon of Homer is described as a good 
king and a stout warrior. He shows a natural affection 
to his brother, and is not deficient in the courtesy 
which, then as now, marked his race ; but he is not in 
other respects an amiable, nor a decidedly estimable 
man: and Homer seems to take care that we shall not 
love him. His besetting sin is personal; it is an avarice, 
which seems to make him both cruel in war, with 

I Od. i. 58. 2 II. ii. 260, 292. 3 Od. xvii. 304. 



$0% . * JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP.' 

a view to spoil, and niggardly in general conduct. His 
marked virtue is official; he has a profound sense of 
responsibility to the army. To this responsibility he 
greatly defers ; and though avarice, appetite, and pride, 
were alike gratified in the acquisition of Chryseis, he 
yields her up 1 . And a circumstance, disclosed later in 
the Poem, shows us that, doubtless from motives of 
policy, he did not assume an absolute possession of the 
woman he had taken from Achilles. Yet he has neither 
the fire of genius, nor any gift of profound political 
sagacity. On the contrary, while, like so many poli- 
ticians, he is a practitioner in finesse, he contrives by 
it to outwit himself. This seems to be, in part at least, 
the explanation of the unhappy device in the Second 
Iliad, where he seeks to provoke the people to an attack 
on Troy, by counselling them to go home forthwith 2 ; 
which they would have done, to his utter confusion, 
unless the error had been retrieved by Odysseus. 

It is a remarkable illustration of the power of the 
Hellenic anthropomorphism, that the characters of the 
Olympian and the Pelopid chief have some close re- 
semblances. Zeus, wielding the highest power, is 
strong in the sense of responsibility, while inferior in 
intellect to some members of the group around him; 
and he partially redeems the meaner elements of his 
character by a strong touch of natural affection for 
his son Sarpedon, just as that of Agamemnon is in 
a degree ennobled by his fraternal love for Menelaos 3 . 
He may be in part the reflection of a human prototype. 
Whether he be or not, it is in great part true that 
Zeus is the Agamemnon of Olympos, and Agamemnon 
the Zeus of Greece. 

1 II. i. 117. 2 II. ii. 139-145. 3 II. iv. 148 ; vii. 107. 



XIV,] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 503 



4. Diomed and Ajax. 

In the same manner the characters of Ajax and' 
Diomed, allied by resemblances in action, are pro- 
foundly and broadly distinguished. Each is superlative 
in its degree; but while Diomed is gallant, Ajax is 
sturdy. Diomed is impassioned, Ajax is calm ; Diomed 
is rapid, Ajax is slow. Diomed can brag; Ajax moves 
in a simple unquestioning self-reliance. Diomed is not 
above taking a circuitous advantage, as we rind when, in 
the act of fulfilling the duties of guestship, he makes an 
extraordinarily profitable exchange with Glaucos : Ajax 
ever goes direct to his point. With a fine discernment, 
the Poet selects Ajax and Odysseus as the envoys to 
Achilles, in the Ninth Book, to attempt a conciliation. 
The favourable prepossessions of the great warrior are 
commanded by his sympathy with the powerful intellect 
of the one, and the straightforward simplicity of the 
other. A certain vein of craft and of talk in Diomed 
carried him away from the type of the first without 
giving him the weighty attractions of the second. 
And it may also be observed that, although Achilles 
is in truth incomparable, yet the combination of in- 
tellect and spirit with activity and rapid force in 
Diomed make him the one chieftain of the Iliad, who, if 
any, would be placed in a direct competition with the 
hero of heroes. Hence probably there was a latent 
estrangement. And hence, probably, Achilles selects 
Diomed for the chief subject of the matchless passage 
in which, gloating over the miscarriages of the Greeks, 
he combines bitter taunt with fiery exultation \ 

1 II. xvi. 74-78. 



504 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Diomed, indeed, possesses every quality necessary to 
make up a complete Achaian hero. Acute, prompt, 
intelligent, decided in mind, daring, constant and re- 
solved in spirit, active, strong, and seemingly resistless 
in strength of body, he is more than able to cope with 
the brute strength of the god Ares. Of any other 
poem he might have been the model man. But even 
the extraordinary composition of his gifts is artfully 
employed by Homer with a view to the greater glory 
of that one character, which, in all qualities and all pro- 
portions of intellect and soul and body, without devi- 
ating from true humanity, is nevertheless colossal. 

5. Helen. 

The Helen of the Homeric Poems has been conceived 
by the Poet, himself of peculiar delicacy, with great 
truth of nature, and evidently with no intention to 
deprive her of a share in the sympathy of his hearers. 
He has made her a woman, not cast in the mould of 
martyrs or of saints, nor elevated in her moral ideas to 
a capacity of comprehension, and of endurance, beyond 
her age- but yet endowed with much tenderness of 
feeling, with the highest grace and refinement, and with 
a deep and peculiar sense of shame for the offence into 
which she has been forced or tempted, and from the 
consequences of which she is unable to escape. 

In order justly to appreciate the character of the 
Homeric Helen, we must begin by casting aside, if we 
can, all which later times have added, and which poets 
more widely familiar than Homer have conveyed into the 
modern mind. That she was a willing partner in the 
crime of Paris at its inception, we are not informed by 



XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 505 

the Poems ; in which, on the contrary, Paris describes 
himself as having carried her off by violence \ We 
only know that she acquiesced in the consequences of it, 
by which she became his mate through a series of years, 
and by which also, on his death, like other widows, she 
was apparently transferred to another husband, his 
brother Deiphobos 2 . In this no general baseness or 
depravity of character is implied, but only the absence 
of a power of resistance, which would have exceeded that 
of Penelope, and would have been almost preterhuman 
at a period, when the condition of a woman withdrawn 
from the regular family order was one of great, nay 
total, helplessness. 

After the fall of Troy, Helen resumes her place in 
the palace of Menelaos, as his Queen. The subdued 
tone of her character, and the absence of self-assertion 
in her, are still observable ; but by her husband, and by 
all around them, she is treated with the same senti- 
ments, as if nothing had happened to break the original 
tenor of her married life. Indeed we find in the 
Odyssey a passage, which seems to indicate a remark- 
able tenderness on the part of Menelaos, in connection 
with the most questionable act recorded of the conduct 
of Helen during the war. When the Greeks were 
inclosed within the frame of the Horse, the Trojans, 
suspecting the ambush, brought her down to the spot, 
and she imitated the voices of the wives of the chief- 
tains, in the hope that they, if there, would reply. This 
act, done against the Greeks, savours of that slight- 
ness of character, which seems to be represented as 
the source of her great error. But Menelaos, when 
he mentions the subject, shifts the blame from her. 
1 II. iii. 400-402. . 2 Od. iv. 276. 



506 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

c Thither,' he says, c thou earnest ; but no doubt it was 
some deity, favourable to Troy, that prompted thee V 

Helen was the object of much reproach in Troy- 
not, however, from the mild Priam 2 , nor from the 
virtuous Hector 3 , but from Hecuba, or from the princes 
and princesses. This is amply to be accounted for, from 
their natural sense of the suffering which by her means 
had been brought upon their family and country, without 
presuming unfavourably of her beyond what has been 
already stated. But it could hardly have been the 
general rule ; for when her sister-in-law Laodike sum- 
mons her to the Wall in the Third Iliad, she addresses 
her by the title of c dear bride V 

Among the Greeks of the War, she is never made the 
subject of reproach. In one verse of the Iliad, Achilles 
speaks of her as that dreadful Helen. But this is in the 
agony of his mind: and in his conference with the 
Envoys, where it would greatly have enhanced the force 
of his argument if he could have represented her as 
worthless, he does nothing of the kind 5 . Penelope 
says of her, that the deity impelled her to do an evil 
deed 6 . But in the context of this very passage, she speaks 
of Helen simply as deluded, without any malice pre- 
pense, and uses the deplorable result to justify her own 
extraordinary circumspection in the matter of the recog- 
nition of Odysseus. Compare this with the words in 
which the Poet describes the sin of Clytemnestra, c To 
his home Aigisthos led her, as willing as himself 7 / 

In truth, Homer awards to Helen, when in his own 
person he speaks of her, an honourable, not a dishonour- 

1 Od. iv. 276. 2 II. xxiv. 770. 3 II. xxiv. 771. 

4 II. iii. 130. 5 II. ix. 337. 6 Od. xxiii. 222. 

7 Od. iii, 272. 



XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. ^of, 

able treatment. The epithets attached to her name 
are chiefly descriptive of beauty and birth; but they 
are never coloured with any tint of blame. And when 
in the Odyssey he compares her to his Artemis \ we see 
on the positive side that favourable bias of his mind, 
of which we may recognise the negative side in the fact 
that he never once compares her to Aphrodite. In 
truth;, the only censures of her that we read in the 
Poems, are those pronounced by herself. 

The scene between her and Aphrodite in the Third 
Iliad exhibits the highest aspect of her character. The 
goddess endeavours to excite her passions, by a glowing 
description of Paris in his beauty and his splendid 
garments, and desires her to repair to him. Struck at 
first with fear when she perceives who it is that is 
addressing her, she then kindles into indignation, and 
makes a bitter and stinging reply ; reproaches Aphrodite 
for interfering to prevent Menelaos from taking her 
home, and bids her assume to herself the odious cha- 
racter she was seeking to force on another, who had too 
long borne it. It is only under violent threats, that 
she at length and with shame complies; and, on ar- 
riving in the presence of Paris, she addresses him in 
terms of scorn and aversion 2 . 

Upon the whole, I think that no one, forming his esti- 
mate of Helen from Homer only, could fall into the gross 
error of looking upon her as a type of depraved character. 
From the odious Helen 3 of the Second iEneid she is 
immeasurably apart. Her beauty, grace, refinement, are 
not contaminated by vicious appetites ; they are only not 
sustained by an heroic, almost a superhuman, firmness. 

1 Od. iv. 122. 2 II. iii. 390-436. 

3 Mn. ii. 567-587. 



508 JUVENTUS mundi. [chap. 

Her fall once incurred, she finds herself bound by the 
iron chain of circumstance, from which she can obtain no 
extrication. But to the world, beneath whose standard 
of morality she has sunk, she makes at least this repara- 
tion, that the sharp condemnation of herself is ever in 
her mouth, and that she does not seek to throw off the 
burden of her shame on her more guilty partner. Nay, 
more than this; her self-abasing and self-renouncing 
humility come nearer, perhaps, than any other heathen 
example, to the type of Christian penitence. 



6. Hector. 

The character of the Homeric Hector has been so 
exaggerated, and so defaced, by the later tradition, that 
it has lost every distinctive feature of the original, and 
has come to stand as a symbol of the highest bravery 
and chivalry. But neither bravery nor chivalry are, in 
a proper sense, distinctive features of the Homeric 
Hector. 

In the original portraiture itself, which is perfectly 
simple and intelligible, there is nothing to account for 
this change. Hector, in the Iliad, is a person of warm 
domestic affections, of upright purpose, of feeble will, 
of considerable, but not first-rate, fighting force ; with 
all the convictions of a good citizen, though without the 
light of imagination or the fire of enthusiasm. He seems 
to be born in a family of lower tone, and weaker fibre, 
than his own ; hence upon him is laid the whole burden 
of war and government in a terrible crisis, and his 
responsibilities are beyond his powers. Hence, pro- 
bably, come the discords of his character; between 
boastfulness, feebleness, and even shabbiness on one 



-XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 509 

side, and fundamental rectitude, worth, and attachment 
to virtue on another. The contrast seems to result 
from an overstrain. And hence it may be that, though 
much looked up to in the Poems by his own family, he 
does not seem to enjoy the confidence or respect either 
of the self-centred iEneas, or of the circumspect Polu- 
damas' 1 , or even of the gallant and good Sarpedon 2 . 

It may be truly said, that Hector is the most incon- 
sistent character in the Iliad. No man is braver, than 
he is at times : on the other hand, no man shows more 
palpable signs of cowardice. No man is more rash; 
yet none has a deeper presentiment of the future. No 
man is so improvident, it might almost be said so 
insolent, in repelling wise counsel tendered to him; 
and yet none shows more unequivocal signs of personal 
humility. But the faults in his character, though 
numerous and glaring, do not form its main tissue. 
They are flaws in a delineation essentially good, and 
occasionally noble. No act of cruelty or bad faith 
or violence, of greed or lust or selfishness, associates 
itself with his character ; the stream of his thought is 
pure j the love he has for his country, his parents, his 
wife, his child, overflows even in a protective care for 
Helen 3 . In the measure open to his day and people, 
he is one who fears God, and regards man ; and perhaps 
the total absence of vice, as it is contradistinguished 
from infirmity, in his character, co-operated with other 
causes in bringing about his adoption in the Christian 
literature of the middle ages, as the model, for the 
olden time, of the heroic man. 

But the very inconsistency of Hector affords a marked 

1 II. xii. 211 ; xiii. 726. 2 II. v. 472 seqq. 

3 II. xxiv. 767-772. 



'10 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 



testimony to the skill of the Poet. Had he been con- 
sistently great, he would have been a real rival to those 
prime Achaian chieftains, to whom Homer sought to 
secure an undisputed supremacy of admiration. Had 
he been consistently mean and small, he would have 
been a foe so unworthy, that no > honour could redound 
to them from overcoming him. One of these dangers 
he has avoided by the flaws in the character of Hector ; * 
the other by his virtues and his merits. It is not easy 
to see by what other means he could effectually have 
attained the ends of his art. And he has further con- 
trived, that the virtues of Hector shall be mainly of 
a stamp, in which the Achaian chieftains shall not be 
tempted to compete with him; the affectionate sorrow 
of his anticipations of the future, the stern rebuke of 
an unworthy brother, the dignified endurance of mis- 
fortune, and that form of resigned heroism, which can 
only be exhibited in the extremity of disaster. 



7. Paris. 

The character of Paris is as worthy, as any other in 
the Poems, of the powerful hand and just judgment of 
Homer. It is neither on the one hand too slightly, nor 
on the other too elaborately, drawn ; the touches are just 
such and so many, as his pontic purpose seemed on the one 
hand to demand, and on the other to admit. Paris is 
not indeed the gentleman, but he is the fine gentleman, 
and the pattern voluptuary, of the heroic ages ; and all 
his successors in these capacities may well be v/ished 
joy of their illustrious prototype. The redeeming, or 
at least relieving, point in his character, is one which 



XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. $Xl 

would condemn any personage of higher intellectual or 
moral pretensions; it is a total want of earnestness, 
the unbroken sway of levity and of indifference to all 
serious and manly considerations. He completely fulfils 
the idea of the poco-curante, except as to the display of 
his personal beauty, the enjoyment of luxury, and the 
resort to sensuality as the best refuge from pain and 
care. He is not a monster, for he is neither savage 
nor revengeful ; but still further is he from being one 
of Homer's heroes, for he has neither honour, courage, 
eloquence, thought, nor prudence. That he bears the 
reproaches of Hector without irritation, is due to that 
same moral apathy, and that narrowness of intelligence, 
which makes him insensible to those he receives from 
Helen. No man can seriously resent what he does not 
really feel. He is wholly destitute even of the delicacy 
and refinement, which soften many of the features of 
vice; and the sensuality he shows in the Third Book 1 
partakes largely of that brutal character which marks 
the lusts of Jupiter. No wise, no generous word ever 
passes from his lips. On one subject only he is deter- 
mined enough; it is, that he will not give up the 
woman whom he well knows to be without attachment 
to him 2 , and whom he keeps not as the object of his 
affections, but merely as the instrument of his plea- 
sures. One solicitude only he cherishes : it is to de- 
corate his person, to exhibit his beauty, to brighten 
with care the arms that he would fain parade, but 
has not the courage to employ against the warriors of 
Greece. 

Paris, though effeminate and apathetic, is not gentle, 
either to his wife or his enemies; and, when he has 
1 II. iii. 437-448. 2 II. iii. 428. 



512 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

wounded Diomed, he wishes the shot had been a fatal 
one. The reply of Diomed .cuts deeper than any arrow 
when he addresses him as 

' Bowman ! ribald ! well-frizzled girl-hunter I 1 ' 

Again, the Poet tells us, as if by accident, that when, 
after the battle with Menelaos, he could not be found, 
it was not because the Trojans were unwilling to give 
him up, for they hated him with the hatred which men 
feel to dark Death 2 . And again we learn, how he uses 
bribery to keep his ground in the Assembly- how he 
refuses to recognise even his own military inferiority, 
but lamely accounts for the success of Menelaos by' 
saying that all men have their turn 3 ; and how he 
causes shame to his own countrymen, and exultation 
to the Greeks, when they contrast the pretensions of 
his splendid appearance with his miserable perform- 
ances in the field 4 . 

The immediate transition, in the Third Book, from 
the field of battle, where he was disgraced, to the bed 
of luxury, is admirably suited to impress upon the 
mind, by the strong contrast, the real character of 
Paris. Nor let it be thought, that Homer has gratuit- 
ously forced upon us the scene between him and his 
reluctant partner. It was just that he should mark as a 
bad man him who had sinned grossly, selfishly, and 
fatally, alike against Greece and his own family and 
country. This impression would not have been con- 
sistent and thorough in all its parts, if we had been 
even allowed to suppose that, as a refined, affectionate, 
and tender companion, he made such amends to Helen, 

1 II. xi. 385. 2 II. iii. 454. 3 II. vi. 339. 

4 II. iii. 43, 51. 



XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 5T3 

as the case permitted, for the wrong done her in his hot 
and heady youth. Such a supposition might excusably 
have been entertained, and it would have been sup- 
ported by the very feebleness of the character of Paris, 
and by his part in the war, had Homer been silent 
upon the subject. He, therefore, though with cautious 
hand, lifts the veil so far as to show us that, in our 
variously compounded nature, animal desire can use up 
and absorb the strength which ought to nerve our higher 
faculties, and that, as none are more cruel than the 
timid, so none are more coarse than the effeminate. 



Section III. The Similes of the Poems. 

The detailed similes of the Iliad are about 194 in 
number; besides near sixty comparisons without any 
detail or varied ornament. 

They are very unequally distributed. The First 
Book has none ; the Sixth only one. In both these the 
action is of highly sustained and varied interest. On 
the other hand, the Books occupied exclusively, with 
battle are largely embellished with them. The Fif- 
teenth has sixteen similes, the Sixteenth has eighteen, 
and the Seventeenth has nineteen. In the Second 
there are thirteen, all of them intended to set off the 
gatherings and array of the Army. 

In the Odyssey, the greater or detailed similes be- 
come very much fewer. They are only forty-one j and 
this not only before the arrival in Ithaca, where the 
action is highly varied, and the movement quick; but 
also in the latter half of the Poem, after the arrival of 

l1 



514 ' JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

Odysseus in Ithaca, when it is more relaxed : since the 
lower tone of the diction and of the subject does not 
call for, or perhaps even admit, this kind of gorgeous 
ornament; perhaps also, according to a very natural 
and reasonable supposition, because these books were 
composed in the declining years of Homer, as they 
certainly indicate, with some noble and brilliant ex- 
ceptions, a lower standard of power. 

The character, too, of the greater similes in the 
Odyssey entirely changes. The lion appears but four 
times 1 , the vulture once 2 , war never, storm never. In- 
dustry, domestic life, the phenomena of outward nature 
when she is tranquil, now supply the materials to the 
hand of the Poet 

The similes of the Odyssey, then, have the same 
harmonious relation to the Poem they embellish, as we 
find in the Iliad. And we should bear in mind, that in 
nothing has Homer more emphatically established a 
type of his own, than in the matter of similes. This 
being so, a treatment so remarkable and characteristic, 
found in each of the two Poems, furnishes of itself one 
among the very large number of particulars, which go 
to make up an inductive argument for the unity of their 
authorship. 

The similes of Homer may in one sense be con- 
sidered as a miniature of the Poems themselves. Ac- 
companying the movement of the action, they sweep 
the entire round of human life. There is in them the 
same elasticity and variety, as in the thought and the 
style : these they follow over hill and dale, as the faith- 
ful dog follows the step of his master. Their tone 

1 Od. iv. 335, 791; vi. 130; xxii. 402. 2 Od. xxii. 303. 






XIV.] PLOTS, CHARACTERS, AND SIMILES. 515 

changes in precise proportion to that of the subject, 
and of the effect that the Poet seeks to produce. 

The similes afford, as I conceive, one among the 
incidental proofs that, if Homer was indeed blind, he 
was blind not from his birth, but from subsequent 
failure of the organ, or calamity. The experience of 
hunting in the woods and among the mountains, for 
example, is detailed with a vivid exactness which im- 
plies a knowledge founded on experience, just as expe- 
rience in this case seems probably to imply vigorous 
limbs, hardy habits, and the perfection of the organs 
of sense. 



L 1 2 



CHAPTER XV. 



Miscellaneous. 



Section I. The Idea of Beauty in Homer. 

The conception of beauty in the Poems of Homer is 
alike intense and chaste. He never associates Beauty 
with evil in such a manner, as to attract our sympa- 
thies towards a bad or contemptible person. This is 
markedly shown by his treatment of Aphrodite, of 
Nireus, and of Paris, on whose personal beauty he 
never dwells as he does on that of Nausicaa 1 or of 
Euphorbos 2 . Only on the one occasion when he has 
shown some sense of shame and duty, and is going forth 
full-armed to battle, is this prince allowed to appear 
for a moment otherwise than despicable 3 . It is not by 
a didactic morality, but by a genuine impulse and habit 
of nature, that Homer thus joins and severs, as far as 
in him lies, what ought to be joined and severed re- 
spectively. The legend of Ganymede 4 , which was 
afterwards perverted to the purposes of depravity, is 

1 Od. vi. 149-169. 2 II. xvii. 50-60. 

3 II. vi. 332-505, * II. xx. 233-235. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 517 



in Homer perfectly pure, and indeed seems to recall, 
though it is in a lower form, the tradition of Enoch, 
who c was not, for God took himV 

We may, however, mark the downward course of 
these traditions, following the lapse of time. Two 
generations after Ganymede, Tithonos, of the same 
family, is appropriated by the goddess Eos as a hus- 
band 2 . One generation more gives us the lawless love 
of Aphrodite and Anchises 3 ; and the same goddess, in 
the next generation, promises to Paris a beautiful wife, 
whom he was to obtain by treachery and violence as 
well as adultery. Priam seems wholly without rule on 
this subject; he charges the fall of Helen 4 on the gods, 
and, even when reviling Paris inclusively with his sur- 
viving sons, makes no reference to his peculiar 



crimes 



It would appear that in ascribing so much beauty to 
the royal family of Troy, Homer may have been follow- 
ing tradition. When treating of the Greeks, he appears 
to award it in pretty close proportion to general excel- 
lence. Achilles, the greatest hero of the Greeks, is the 
most beautiful 6 ; and Thersites, their basest wretch, is 
loaded with ugliness and deformity 7 . Odysseus, the 
counterpart without being the rival, of Achilles, has 
undoubted beauty of a different kind, although with- 
out lofty stature 8 ; and Ajax, the second of the army 
in strength, is in the Odyssey called second in beauty 
also 9 . 

We may trace the value set by Homer on personal 

1 Gen. v. 24. 2 II. xi. i. Od. v. i. 3 II. ii. 821. 

* II. iii. 164. 5 II. xxiv. 260. 

6 II. ii. 674; xxiv. 629. Od. xi. 470. 7 II. ii. 216-219. 

8 II. iii. 169. 9 Od. xi. 470. 



51 8 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

beauty not only in the loving spirit of passages such as 
those that relate to Euphorbos and Nausicaa, and in 
his assignment of the gift to his two protagonists, 
but also in some notes appertaining to the two nations 
respectively. No Trojan is allowed the glory of that 
auburn hair which is ascribed to Achilles 1 , in one place 
to Odysseus 2 , and habitually to Menelaos. Nor are 
they ever adorned collectively with epithets of personal 
attractiveness such as those given to the Greeks of the 
flashing eye (eAucoTrej) 3 , of the flowing hair (KaprjKO- 
juoWres) 4 , and of the admirable beauty (et8os- ayrjToC) 5 . 
And while, in the case of Nireus, Homer has carefully 
discriminated between mind and body, he has so 
marked his perfection of form that no reader of the 
Iliad, however careless, can fail to be impressed by the 
record. Manifestly, too, he delivers his own sentiments 
from the mouth of Odysseus at the Court of Alkinoos, 
where he speaks of beauty, the power of thought, and 
the power of speech, as the three great gifts of the gods 
to the individual man 6 . 

Stature, as well as form, entered very much into the 
conception of beauty among the ancients ; and this for 
women as well as men. Yet he was sensible, at least 
with respect to women, that tallness might pass into 
excess. Accordingly, among the Laistrugones, when 
two comrades of Odysseus meet the queen, c they found 
her big as a mountain's top, and loathed her".' 

Homer had a profound perception of the beauty of 
animals, at least in the case of the horse, as to colour, 
form, and especially movement. We trace in him a 

1 II. i. 197. 2 Od. xiii. 397. 3 II. i. 389, et alibi. 

* II. ii. 11, et passim. 5 II. v. 787 ; viii. 228. 

G Od. viii. 167-177. 7 Od. x. 112. 



XV.] MIS CELL A NEOUS. 5 1 9 

commencement of the pedigrees of this animal 1 . It is 
with an intense sympathy that the Poet describes the 
lordly creature and his motions, which he has idealised 
up to the highest point by the tears of horses, their 
speech, and their scouring the expanse of sea and the 
tips of standing corn 2 . The whole series of passages 
relating to the horse in the Iliad is noble and emphatic 
throughout ; and in no parts of the Poems can we more 
distinctly trace, by the slower or quicker movement of 
his verse, his adaptation of sound to sense. Space 
does not permit me here to exhibit in detail the proofs 
of Homer's admiration for the beauty of the horse 3 . 

The appreciation of landscape was a faculty less 
highly developed in Homer; yet it surely existed. 
The mountainous country of Lacedaemon, which he 
calls hollow, he also calls lovely 4 ; the epithet employed 
(erateinos) being the same which he uses to describe 
Hermione, the daughter of Helen, a person endowed 
with the beauty of golden Aphrodite 5 . Corfu, to which 
he applies the same descriptive word 6 , is in our day of 
the highest fame for the beauty of its scenery. 

Again, Telemachos apprises Menelaos that Ithaca is 
a goat- feeding island, without meadows, and more 
eperatos than a horse-feeding country 7 . The epithet is 
equivalent to the one last before mentioned ; and as the 
meaning is that a hill-country is more beautiful to the 
eye than champaign, we seem here to have a distinct 
appreciation of the beauty of scenery. The famous 
simile of the watch-fires and the sky by night appears to 

1 II. v. 265-273 ; xx. 221. 2 II. xx. 225. 

3 See Studies on Homer, iii. 410-416. 

4 II. ii. 581 ; iii. 239. Od. iv. 1. 5 Od. iv. 13. 

6 Od. vii. 79. 7 Od. iv, 606. 









520 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

carry something of a like interpretation 1 . And as re- 
gards the more limited combinations of what may be 
termed home-views, we have at the least two great 
instances in the Odyssey: one of them the garden of 
Alkinoos 2 ; the other the grotto of Calypso, of which 
he closes his description by saying that c even an Im- 
mortal, on beholding it, would be seized with wonder 
and delight 3 / 

At the same time, I do not doubt that life, and not 
repose, is the grand and vital element of beauty in the 
conceptions of Homer, whether they are applied to 
nature, or to the animated world. 



Section II. The Idea of Art in Homer. 

The Homeric Poems give us a view substantially 
clear of the state of art in the time of the Poet. They 
also contain conceptions of the principle of art, so 
vivid as perhaps never to have been surpassed. And, 
unless I am mistaken, they indicate to us the source 
from which the specific excellence of Greek Art, in its 
highest form, proceeded. By the term Art, I understand 
the production of beauty in material forms palpable 
to the eye ; whether associated with industrial purposes 
or not. 

First, then, there are many works of art mentioned 
in Homer : but, in the whole of them, it is associated 
with some purpose of utility. The greatest of them all 
is the Shield of Achilles. Next to which, perhaps, 

1 II. viii. 557. 2 Od. vii. 112-132. 3 Od. v. 63-75. 



XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 521 

comes the armour of Agamemnon 1 ; various bowls, 
mentioned in different places 2 ; the baldric of 
Heracles 3 ; and the golden clasp of the mantle of 
Odysseus 4 . In all of them, living form is represented. 
There are other objects of a less defined class, but 
belonging rather to mere decoration. Such are the 
necklace of gold and amber, carried by the Phoinikes 
to Surie 5 ; the couch or chair of Penelope, with a stool 
to match 6 ; and the burnished sheets of copper in the 
palaces of Alkinoos and Menelaos?. There are also 
works of simple mechanical skill, such as the airy net 
of metal worked by Hephaistos 8 . We find in the Poems 
no production of what is termed pure art : everything, 
to which art is applied, has an object beyond itself: 
utility aspires to be decked with beauty ; and beauty is 
never dissociated from utility. 

Next, as to the material of art. We have in Homer 
no sign of the use of any material, except metal, for the 
production of beautiful forms; and, specifically, the 
metals of gold, silver, tin, and copper. It seems 
probable that there were, at least in Troy, statues of 
the gods. But probably also these were rude images 
of wood, such as Pausanias describes under the name 
of xoana, in which Homer would find nothing 
answering to his conception of beauty. 

As to the range of art in point of subjects, we must 
consider it, in all likelihood, as almost entirely confined 
to the exhibition of form, and of form too, in the solid. 
Of painting proper, and therefore of colours as connected 

1 II. xi. 15-46. 2 II. xxiii. 740-750. Od. iv. 613-619, 
3 Od. xi. 609-614. 4 Od. xiii. 226-231. 

5 Od. xv. 459* 6 Od. xix. 55-58. 

7 Od. iv. 72 ; vii. 86. 8 Od. viii. 277, 



522 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

with painting, we have no sign ; though we have one 
case of the use of a single colour, in the staining of 
ivory 1 . But the use of the sheets of copper, already 
mentioned, is a step in that direction; and the inter- 
mixture of varieties of metal, especially on the Shield 
of Achilles, and in the armour of Agamemnon, show 
what was perhaps the fullest resort to the principle of 
colour that the limited command of material permitted. 
As to the seat of art, we cannot affirm that it had as 
yet for any purpose been practically established in 
Greece. No single operation is recorded in the Poems 
which gives an indication of high metallic skill as 
having been attained anywhere in that country. By 
far the most considerable is the bedstead of Odysseus, 
which is adorned with gold, silver, and copper: but 
then Odysseus is a master in every art, almost a 
magician : and we are not told that even his art 
included the representation of living form 2 . The 
colouring process, to which reference has been made, 
is supposed to be carried on, not by a Greek, but by 
a Meonian or a Carian woman. And in most of the 
cases where a true work of art is mentioned, it is 
referred directly to Sidon or the Phoenician ; in one or 
two instances to Thrace, on the shore of which the Phoe- 
nicians seem to have had settlements. In other cases 
it is referred, like the Shield, to Hephaistos, a god of 
Phoenician associations. In the case of the bowl, pre- 
sented by the king of the Sidonians to Menelaos 3 , 
we are told expressly that it was the work of Hephais- 
tos. The gold-beater and the xakKtvs, or smith, are 
known to Homer; but only, as far as appears, for 
the simplest operations; the former simply attaches a 

1 II. iv. 141. 2 Od. xxiii. 195-201. 3 Od. iv. 615-619. 



XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 523 

plate or band of gold to the horns of the sacrificial ox, 
and it appears from the passage that he did not ply a 
separate trade, but was merely the copper-smith en- 
gaged in beating gold 1 , inasmuch as he is called 
chalkeus, as well as chrusochoos. All that related 
to the execution of works of art, so far as we can 
judge from the Poems, the Achaian Greeks had yet to 
learn. 

But as in other points, so in this, the Poet opened 
the way for his countrymen, and taught them how they 
should walk along it in the after-time. As his per- 
ception of beauty in living form was most keen, so 
his idea of art in forms inanimate, copied from nature, 
was alike powerful and simple : it was that which 
brought them up to life. In the nature of things, we 
perhaps may say, it cannot be carried farther. The 
chairs of Hephaistos moved spontaneously 2 . The 
porter-dogs of Alkinoos, wrought in gold and silver 3 , 
were of an immortal youth. The metallic handmaids 
of the god himself were endowed with thought as well 
as motion 4 . In the ploughing scene upon the Shield, 
as the furrow is turned, the earth darkens, though it is 
of gold 5 . And in the battle compartment, the sculp- 
tured warriors fight, and the dead are dragged off the 
field, with actual movement as in a scene of war 6 . 
Such is the bold delineation by which the oldest poet 
of Art has given the challenge to his successors, and 
bids them excel him if they can. 

But all these representations, however raised into sub- 
limity by genius, must have had a basis in fact ; and it 
seems difficult to resist the conclusion that Homer, 

1 Od. iii. 432-438. 2 II. xviii. 375. 3 Od. vii. 91. 

* II. xviii. 417. 5 II. xviii. 549. 6 II. xviii. 533-540. 



524 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

and the Greeks of his time, must have seen, though 
they had not yet learned to make, art-works of a high 
order, imported, without doubt, in general from Phoe- 
nicia, and produced either there or further eastwards. 

The Sidonian works themselves, if executed, as 
Homer commonly represents, in gold and silver, were 
doomed without doubt to perish, so soon as the time 
should arrive when men might come to prize the 
workmanship less, than the application of the mere 
material to other uses. But if we may judge from 
the testimony of such remains as are now accessible, 
there were two great schools, with which Phoenician 
artists must have been in relation, alike from their 
political and their geographical connections: the 
Egyptian and the Assyrian. It is not, I suppose, too 
much to say, that we perceive, in a portion at least of 
the actual remains of these schools, the attainment of 
high excellence in intention and design, with no incon- 
siderable progress in execution. They seem, however, 
to me to represent different principles : the Assyrian 
appears to embody the principle of life and motion; 
the Egyptian, the principle of repose. If this be true, 
there can be little doubt, I presume, that the ideas of 
Homer had their base and fountain-head much more 
in the former than in the latter. But in any case, 
it would really seem probable, from the vivid and 
stirring descriptions of Homer, that these Phoenician 
importations supplied patterns, and suggested ideas, 
which might well, in process of time, become the 
nucleus of the first great efforts of Greek art. 

When that nucleus was once supplied, and when 
the new life began to grow, then the Olympian system 
of religion provided it, through the union of the divine 



XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. $2$ 

nature to the human form, with that lofty aim, which 
braced it to a perpetual effort upwards, and so con- 
veyed to it the pledge and the talisman of all tran- 
scendent excellence. Every idea, appertaining to deity, 
was held capable of representation in matter; but it 
could only be matter moulded according to the shape 
of man. Thus Greek art was a perpetual untiring 
pursuit of the highest standard of the ideal, while it 
seems to have had for its starting-point foreign models 
which, though not similarly inspired, were of such high 
merit as to suggest to Homer that imitation might run 
no unsuccessful race with nature. This happy union 
of the most fundamental conditions of design and exe- 
cution was seconded by the lights of a fine climate, 
by the possession of the purest marbles, and by the 
corporal perfection of a race abounding in the noblest 
models. We cannot wonder that, with these advan- 
tages, Greece, within her limits of knowledge and 
experience, should have held down to our own day the 
throne of Art. 



Section III. Physics of Homer. 

Homer's ideas of physics were extremely simple, as 
well as apparently few. He perceived that rivers were 
fed by rain and snow; and therefore he calls them 
Au7rere'ej, Zeus-fallen, which we should probably under- 
stand to mean c coming from the realm of Zeus. 5 Fire 
is the single element which he seems in any direct 
mode to identify with an Olympian Deity, and this 
only in one undoubted instance, where he calls it 
Hephaistos. He considered the human body to be 



526 yUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

composed of the elements which make up earth and 
water, for he treats it as resolvable by Death into 
these substances 1 . It is not easy to arrive at a positive 
conclusion about his conception of the figure of the 
Earth, beyond the fact that he considered it to be oblong, 
which may be probably shown from a comparison of 
many passages in the Poems. The land, as known to 
his experience, was limited. A circle, of from 350 to 
400 miles in diameter, would have comprised more 
than all the places, that were within the limits of 
ordinary Greek knowledge and experience. All his 
ideas of vastness were connected with the sea. From 
his placing the River Ocean at all points of the com- 
pass, and his making it flow round the Earth, together 
with the general disposition of objects on the Shield of 
Achilles, he may be imagined to have conceived of our 
planet as a flat surface. On the other hand, he seems 
to connect the extreme East with the farthest West, 
Sunset with Sunrise, as if he thought it were a surface 
wrapped (so to speak) round a cylinder. For, placing 
in the far east the Island of Thrinakie and the Oxen 
of the Sun, he makes that deity declare that with these 
animals he amused himself not only when he rose, but 
when he returned from heaven to earth; that is to 
say, at the time of his setting. To this idea there is 
a partial approximation in the formation of a shield, 
such as it appears either uniformly or commonly to 
have been in the time of Homer, namely an oval, or 
oblong. The Homeric shield is called a^ijSpoTT} as 
covering the human figure. But it is also called zvkvkXos. 
Does this refer to a rounding at the top and bottom ? 
or does it more probably mean that an horizontal sec- 
1 II. vii. 99. 



XV.] MISCELLA NEOUS. $2 J 

tion of the shield represented a segment of a well- 
drawn circle ? If the latter be the meaning, the two 
epithets are placed in thorough harmony. For, the 
more the shield is rounded horizontally, the more does 
it shelter the warrior who uses it. And this form 
might agree with the passage in Od. xii. 380 *, where 
the c return 5 of the Sun may mean his passing from 
the point at which men lose him in the West, to his 
bed or place of rising (clvtoXol) in the East 2 . 

The amusing threat of the Sun, that he will go down 
to Hades and shine there, is not so strange or far- 
fetched, relatively to Homeric ideas, as might at first 
sight appear. For, while he set and rose in the, itepi- 
KaXXrjs XifJivr) 3 , the exceeding beautiful expanse of 
Okeanos, as he had to make his way from the Okeanos 
of the West to the Okeanos of the East, he might easily 
be thought, in doing this, to pass through, or near, that 
underground region, in which dwelt the Gods- Avengers, 
and which was the realm of Aides and Persephone. 
Aides, says Poseidon, obtained by lot the ^o$os ^epo'ets 4 . 
Now zophos in Homer is used to signify the West: 
and yet Odysseus enters the realm of Ai'doneus in the 
East, near the Sunrise. With all that dark subterra- 
nean space between, the Olympian Immortals had no 
concern : for them, as for us, the light of the Sun both 
came and went ; ' He rose on gods and men, over the 
teeming earth 5 .' The change threatened to be made 

1 We might be tempted to treat as Phoenician this piece of 
cosmology. But we should then perhaps be pushing to an extreme 
the doctrine of a Phoenician origin for the Theotechny of the 
middle Odyssey, which would hardly reach so far into details. 

2 Od. xiii. 4. 3 Od. iii. 1. * II. xv. 191. 

5 Od. iii. x. 



528 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



[CHAP, 






I 



may have been only this, that the Sun, instead of pass- 
ing through or round the dwelling of Aides, would 
remain there. Zeus therefore takes his menace as 
perfectly serious, and replies in effect, ' Do as hereto- 
fore, and all shall be right V 



Section IV. Metals in Homer. 



i 






Archaeological inquiry is now teaching us to inves- 
tigate and to mark off the periods of human progress, 
among other methods, by the materials employed from 
age to age for making utensils and implements. And 
the Poems of Homer have this among their many 
peculiarities j they exhibit to us, with as much clear- 
ness perhaps as any archaeological investigation, one 
of the metallic ages. It is moreover the first and oldest 
of the metallic ages, the age of copper, which precedes 
the general knowledge of the art of fusing metals • 
which (as far as general rules can be laid down) im- 
mediately follows the age of stone, and which in its 
turn is probably often followed by the age of bronze, 
when the combination of copper with tin has come 
within the resources of human art. 

The grand metallic operation of the Poems is that 
of Hephaistos in the production of the Shield. The 
metals used 2 were gold, silver, tin, and chalcos, which 
has been by mere licence of translators interpreted as 
brass, for there was no brass till long ages after Homer 
had rolled away : which has been more plausibly taken 
to mean bronze : but which, after a good deal of 
inquiry, I am satisfied can only mean copper, either 



1 Od. xii. 384-3! 



II. xviii. 474. 



XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 529 

universally and absolutely, or as a general rule, with 
very insignificant exceptions. 

The discussion would be too long for this place. 
But the passage immediately before us of itself affords 
almost sufficient instruction. 

In the formation of the Shield, there is no mixture 
or fusion of metals. The same, and all the same, which 
are put into the roaring fire, reappear, each by its 
original name, in various portions of the Shield. There 
is indeed one passage, where a trench is represented, 
and this is called kuanee, a word meaning either 
made of kuanos, or like kuanos in colour. There 
are two reasons for giving the latter signification to 
the word. One, that it commonly bears that sense 
in Homer; the other, that though kuanos may have 
been a mixed metal, yet there is no sign of founding 
or casting in this great masterpiece of Hephaistos. 

He could only mix by melting; and had he melted 
metals, we must have heard of moulds to receive them. 
Instead of this, the only instruments which he makes 
ready for the work 1 are 

1. The anvil. 

2. The hammer in his (right) hand. 

3. The pincers in his left. 

It is plain, then, that he was supposed not to melt, 
but only to soften the metals by heating, and then 
to beat them into the forms he wished to produce. 

Had Homer been conversant with the fusing or 
casting of metals, this is the very place where we must 
have become aware of it; especially as his works of 
skilled art are all of Phoenician origin or kin, and 
his Hephaistos is a god of Phoenician associations. 
1 II. xviii. 476, 477. 
m m 



$3° JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

If chalcos be not copper, then copper is never 
mentioned in Homer. But, in an early stage of society, 
copper was commonly by far the cheapest and most 
accessible of metals ; and it is quite impossible to sup- 
pose, that we never once hear of copper from an author, 
who incessantly makes mention (so it is argued) of 
another metal, whereof it is by far the largest com- 
ponent part. 

One of Homer's epithets for chalcos is eruthros, 
red; and this it is impossible under any conditions 
to apply to bronze. 

There is abundant evidence of a correspondence 
between the seven metals of Homer, and the seven 
metals of the ancient planetary worship of the East : 
but one of these is copper, and from it Cyprus was 
named ; and Homer introduces Mentes sailing to 
a port of Cyprus (Temese) for chalcos 1 . 

We find chalcos in Homer a very cheap and 
common metal ; tin a very scarce and rare metal, only 
used in very small quantities, and even approaching in 
some degree to the character of what we now term a 
precious metal. It is very improbable that the defensive 
armour, and all the meaner utensils, in Homer could 
have contained an eighth part, or thereabouts, of tin. 

So Hesiod, in his age of chalcos, represents not only 
the arms and implements, but the dwellings as made 
of that material 2 . This could not have been bronze. 

And I have high metallurgical authority for stating, 
that the sheathing of chalcos on walls as already men- 
tioned must, for mechanical reasons, have been some 
material other than bronze. 

It is said that chalcos cannot be hardened so as to 
1 Od. i. 184. 2 Opp. 143-155. 



XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 53 1 

make a cutting tool; whereas this material is named 
in Homer as used for peeling bark, and cutting twigs 
and young branches, as well as for making weapons 
of war 1 . We have, however, in at least one place its 
imperfection by reason of softness noticed 2 . But, as 
portions of tin are found in some copper ores, may 
it not be that there were also small portions of it 
in virgin copper used for these purposes ? I find, 
moreover, that ancient nails have been discovered, 
containing 97I- per cwt. of copper, and only <x\ of 
tin: and surgical instruments made of copper alone 
have been discovered recently in a tomb at Athens 3 . 

But although it seems clear that chalcos in general 
means copper, this may not compel us absolutely to 
exclude from its signification all compositions of the 
nature of bronze. In later times the word appears 
to have included both senses. The Latin ses without 
an epithet described a compound metal; with the 
epithet cyprium it meant copper. Some bronzes with 
a polish are not wholly unlike copper, though they 
want its redness. Possibly some sharp instruments of 
this composition might be imported into .Greece, with- 
out at once leading to a distinction of name, especially 
if there were native copper, or kinds of copper, in 
use, which had some slight natural admixture of tin. 
But these cases must have been exceptional, so far 
as the use of the word in the Poems is concerned. 

Kuan os is generally the type of a very dark colour 
in Homer, and the word may possibly mean bronze. 
The Greeks had it in small quantities : it was more 

1 II. i. 236; xxi. 37. 2 II. xi. 237. 

3 Gobel, Einfluss der Chimie auf die Ermittelung der Volker 
der Vorzeit, pp. 25, 35. 

M m % 



532 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

valuable than copper, but apparently less prized than tin. 
In the planetary worship of the East, six deities were con- 
nected with six pure metals, and one with kuanos. In 
Homer we find the six metals, and the kuanos. Now as 
the septiform system was apparently represented in the 
seven gates of Thebes, and as the Greeks evidently 
depended on the Phoenicians for imported metals, I 
conclude that kuanos is the seventh metal, a mixed 
one, and I know no conclusive reason why it should 
not be bronze. It was used only for ornamentation, 
and in small quantities : if we except the cornice of 
kuanos in the quasi-Phoenician palace of Alkinoos 1 . 
Metals in those days seem to have been the great basis 
of commerce, when there was no apparatus available 
for storing, sheltering, or distributing with rapidity, 
perishable materials. 

The metals of Homer, then, are — 
i. Gold. 5. Iron. 

2. Silver. 6. Chalcos or Copper. 

3. Tin. j. Lead. 

4. Kuanos. 
Silver appears to have been rarer than gold : as might 
be expected, considering that it is chiefly obtained by 
scientific means. It came but from one place 2 , Alube 
in Asia Minor. We do not hear of it as used in ex- 
change, nor, I think, in stored wealth- but, in plating 
only, and in works of art. 

The respective order of value for the metals is, I 
believe, that in which I have just placed them. Not 
so their quantities. Of lead we hear very little in- 
deed. Iron was greatly more esteemed than copper, 
and was very rare, though seemingly more abundant 
1 Od. vii. 86. 2 II. ii. 857. 



XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 533 

than tin or kuanos. We hear of it, together with 
gold and copper, as an article of stored wealth 1 . It 
was only used for cutting instruments ; and chiefly, as 
far as appears, for woodmen's axes. The quantities of 
all the metals would seem to have been very limited, 
except of chalcos only. 

Gold was employed in plating, for works of art ; it 
appears also as stored wealth, and moreover, as in the 
Suit on the Shield, with a slight approach to the charac- 
ter of a measure of value 2 . 

Tin was used in small quantities for ornament, and 
was plated on copper 3 . The only articles entirely 
made of it were the greaves of Achilles; and these 
proceeded from a divine, not a human, workman 4 . 



Section V. The Measure of Value in Homer. 

Although the Greek of the heroic age was eminently 
temperate, and abhorrent of excess, the spirit of acqui- 
sition was already strong within him. Not only were 
the crude elements of wealth carefully stored, but works 
of art had begun to be prized; and beautiful armour, 
garments, and even personal ornaments, were in use 
among the great. We have, however, no distinct case 
recorded of inland commerce as among the Greeks; 
and the business of exchange had not passed beyond 
the form of barter. 

Yet it appears that gold had begun to be used as a 
convenient material for the requital of service, and 
probably also for the liquidation of penalty. On the 

1 II. vi. 48, et alibi. 2 II. xviii. 507. 

3 II. xxiii. 561 ; xx. 271. * II. xxi. 582, 590-594* 



534 



JUVENTVS MUNDI. 



[chap. 















,' 



Shield, the most approved Judge was to receive two 
talents of that metal 1 for his sentence. And as we 
hear of the payment of fines on various occasions 2 
(distinguished, in the terms of the Pact, from the 
restitution of the stolen property), it is probable that 
there is a reference to a precious metal. The epithets 
ri/x?Jei9 and epin/xos or c priceful 3 / applied to gold, and 
to that only, may have a relation to this custom. In 
the Twenty-second Odyssey, we have a uju?) or fine of 
gold and copper 4 . 

But a measure of service is one thing, and a measure 
of value for exchange is another ; and we have no sign 
that gold or silver was used as a common standard, to 
place commodities in any definite relation of value to 
one another ; although the hoarding, of gold in parti- 
cular, was a step towards this further development. An- 
other initial sign was the division of the metal into 
fixed and equal quantities, which is recorded on the 
Shield. 

The only commodity which approximates, in the 
actual usage exhibited by the Poems, to a measure of 
value, is the ox- for in this alone other commodities 
are priced. The arms of Diomed are worth nine oxen ; 
those of Glaucos are worth a hundred 5 . The tripod, 
which was the first prize for wrestlers in the Twenty- 
third Iliad, was valued at twelve oxen; the woman 
captive, skilled in works of industry, at four 6 . This 
case does not probably exhibit the normal relations ; for 
in the camp women-captives would be cheap, and oxen 



1 II. xviii. 507. 

2 II. ix. 632-634; xiii. 699. Od. ii. 192. 

3 II. xviii. 475 ; cf. ix. 268. 
5 II. vi. 236. 



4 Od. xxii. 57-59. 
6 II. xxiii. 702-705. 



XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. $$$ 

dear. Accordingly we find that, when Eurucleia was 
brought to Ithaca, she was purchased by Laertes for 
twenty oxen, or for the value of them 1 . 

When Euneos sent ships laden with wine to trade 
with the Greek army, his men took in return — (i) cop- 
per, (2) iron, (3) hides, (4) slaves, (5) oxen. Probably the 
demand for wine was universal : each paid for it with 
what he had to spare, in the different kinds of booty 
acquired. It is not likely that oxen would be sent 
away from the camp ; but it may be intended that the 
men of Euneos took them from those who had them 
beyond their wants, as a commodity which they could 
easily dispose of to others of the chiefs or soldiery less 
amply supplied 2 . 

And we have seen from ^Eschylus, in the Agamem- 
non, that the figure of the ox was the sign first im- 
printed upon a coin ; doubtless one intended to repre- 
sent the equivalent in the metal of the animal 3 . 



Section VI. The Use of Number in Homer. 

The idea of number is one which, up to a certain 
point, is readily grasped by an average adult of the 
present day. Persons with a special gift apprehend 
the idea, with the same clearness, on a larger scale. 
Children fall short of those who are grown up, and in 
early youth have no distinct conception beyond a very 
few units. It seems that, in the childhood of the world, 
men even of the capacity and grasp of Homer had no 

1 Od. i. 431. 2 II. vii. 472-475. 3 Agam. 37. 



5$6 JUVENTUS MUNDI. [CHAP. 

definite idea of numbers beyond a very narrow range. 
By a definite idea of numbers I mean that, which grasps 
the whole without losing the separate conception of 
the parts. 

We find in Homer as round numbers the sums of 
ten thousand, and nine thousand. An accomplished 
person knows ten thousand things 1 . The shout of 
Ares was like that of nine thousand or ten thousand 
men 2 . These expressions are evidently altogether 
vague. 

Erichthonios had three thousand horses 3 . Euneos, 
who came to trade with the Achaian army, presented 
the two Atridai with a thousand metres of wine 4 . 
At the Trojan bivouac, a thousand watchfires were 
kindled on the plain 5 . Iphidamas, having given a 
hundred oxen to gain a wife, promises a thousand 
goats and sheep 6 . Some of these instances are obvi- 
ously figurative : and it is even possible that all are so ; 
for we find the rough and indefinite use of the numeral 
descending as low as to the single hundred. It is 
plain, from many passages in the Poems, that the 
hecatomb does not mean a hundred oxen, but only 
a batch of oxen, sufficient for one of the more solemn 
sacrifices. Crete has in one passage a hundred cities, 
in another ninety 7. Lucaon says, that Achilles sold 
him in Lemnos for the value of a hundred oxen 8 . But 
though a prince by birth, he could only be worth a very 
small fraction of that number of oxen, when sold as a 
slave from the Greek camp. Every gold drop or tassel 

1 Od. ii. 16. 2 II. v. 860. 3 II. xxi. 251. 

4 II. vii. 571. 5 II. viii. 562. 

6 II. xi. 244, 7 II. ii. 649. Od. xix. 174. 8 II. xxi. 79. 



xv.] 'Miscellaneous* . ^31 

of the Aigis of Athene was worth a hundred oxen 1 . 
This, if taken literally, would assign to the Aigis itself 
a weight of perhaps not less than a ton and a half, 
which is inadmissible, since she carries it in the field 
among the Greeks, and must be in a certain relation 
of stature to them 2 . 

The negative evidence of the Poems is in consonance 
with these instances of the positive class. The Poet 
nowhere states the numbers of the Greek Army ; not 
even of any of the separate contingents. And when 
he gives the number of ships for each contingent, it 
is in every instance, except a very few, of which the 
highest is twenty-two, a round number. In two cases 
he states the crews; they are 120 and 50 respectively. 
These numbers have been taken as a key to an exact 
computation. But it is impossible that all the chief con- 
tingents should have been in round numbers; and we 
are told that Agamemnon's division was by far the 
first in number of men 3 , whereas in number of ships 
it was but very little beyond some others. 

Homer has clearly shown us how weak he felt him- 
self in the use of numbers, by the curious passage in 
which he compares the relative numbers of Greeks and 
Trojans proper. Were they to be counted, says Aga- 
memnon, the Greeks in tens, and the Trojans appointed 
singly to serve them with wine, many a party of ten 
would be without a cup-bearer 4 . Had he been in any 
manner familiar with the use of numbers on a large 
scale, he could not, on a point of such interest, have 
been contented with so slight and vague an approxi- 

1 II. ii. 448. 2 Studies on Homer, vol. iii. p. 430. 

3 II. ii. 580. * II. ii. 123-128. 



53* 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



[chap. 



) 












mation. We may therefore be sure that when he 
speaks of the thousand watchfires of the Trojan 
bivouac, and adds that by each fire there sat fifty 
warriors 3 , he had never performed the mental pro- 
cess, to us so simple, of reckoning the force in arms 
at fifty thousand. 

The largest number which I find in the Poems with 
any sign of definite use, is that of the fat hogs under 
the care of Eumaios. They are 360 2 ; and, as one is 
daily sent down to the banquet of the Suitors, they 
correspond with the days of the year ; of which it is 
probable that, with the help of the months as an inter- 
mediate step, a real computation had been made 3 . 

Except where aided by the revolutions of the seasons, 
or by some fixed usage, Homer is extremely vague in 
the specification of periods of time. Odysseus describes 
as c yesterday and the day before,' which we may take 
as the equivalent of our ' a day or two ago,' what had 
happened at a distance of time between a fortnight and 
three weeks back. The periods of years which go be- 
yond a generation are never mentioned; but time is 
always computed, and with a remarkable accuracy, by 
the genealogies of notable persons. The generation, 
or yever), appears to have been conceived by the Poet 
as equal to thirty years ; and yet here we ought prob- 
ably to say, to thirty years more or less. The age of 
Nestor was evidently about or over seventy; he was 
bearing the kingly office in his third yever] or genera- 
tion 4 . And it seems as if the ten years of the war, 
with ten of preparation preceding them, and ten of 









1 II. viii. 563. 
3 Od. xiv. 93. 



2 Od. xiv. 20. 
* II. i, 252. 



XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 539 

wanderings which follow, were intended poetically to 
make up this whole, so that an entire generation should 
be spent upon it. Yet the first of the three terms 
would appear incapable of a literal interpretation. We 
may be sceptical as to the other two; but it seems 
clear, that the Poet could hardly have intended us to 
believe that ten years were expended in gathering the 
force. 

Only in one place does Homer refer to any actual 
process of reckoning. He describes Proteus counting 
his seals by the word pempassetai 1 . I understand this 
to mean no more than that he reckoned them on his 
five fingers. It is however somewhat remarkable, that 
this only reference to any part or element of the decimal 
scale, which we are still supposed to derive from the 
East, should be found upon an Eastern scene, and in 
connection with a personage of purely Phoenician asso- 
ciations. 

Section VII. The Sense of Colour in Homer. 

In the c Studies on Homer/ I have considered at 
some length the manner in which Homer handles, the 
subject of colour. I can in this place only lay down 
certain propositions without attempting the proof of 
them in detail. 

To us of the present day, colour, and its broader 
distinctions, are familiar from childhood upwards. But, 
in the first place, it is to be borne in mind, that the 
acquired knowledge of one generation becomes in time 
the inherited aptitude of another. In the second place, 
much of our varied experience in colour is due to 
1 Od. iv. 412, 451. 



54° 



JUVENTUS MUNDI. 



[chap. 



1 









chemistry, and to commerce, which brings to us the pro- 
ductions of all the regions of the world. Mere Nature, 
at any one spot, does not present to us a full and well- 
marked series of the principal colours such as to be 
habitually before the mind's eye. Thirdly, the curious 
investigations 1 of late years have shown us that, even 
now and in our own country, no inconsiderable pro- 
portion of persons are without the faculty of perceiving 
some of the primary distinctions of colour. 

With respect to Homer, my main conclusions are 
i. That his perceptions of colour, considered as light 
decomposed, though highly poetical, are also very inde- 
terminate. 

2. But that his perceptions of light not decomposed, 
as varying between light and dark, white and black, 
were most vivid and effective. 

3. That accordingly his descriptions of colour gene- 
rally tend a good deal to range themselves in a scale 
(so to speak) of degrees, rather than of kinds, of light. 

The primitive experience of the prismatic colours 
must have been principally drawn from the rainbow. 
But Homer only once mentions the rainbow 2 , and here 
he compares it with the snakes of dark metal on the 
breastplate of Agamemnon; of which comparison I 
can discern no other ground than that they would flash 
a varying light as the chieftain moved. 

His goddess Iris is in evident relation to the rain- 
bow. Yet he never gives her an epithet of colour 3 ; 
though he calls her golden-winged. I think these facts 
go some way towards proving my main theses. 



1 See Wilson on Colour Blindness. 
3 II, viii. 398. 



2 II. xi. 27. 



XV.] MISCELLANEOUS. 54 T 

There are no words in Homer which can with any 
certainty be held to mean any one of these three colours : 
orange, green, and blue. His word kuaneos, which is 
more like indigo, does not seem to have been clearly 
separated in his mind from black 1 ; while he also ap- 
plies it to wet sand 2 . His word porphureos for violet, 
runs into his word eruthros for red. His word xan- 
thos for yellow is applied to auburn or red hair, to the 
ears of corn, to a chestnut horse, to a river (apt to be 
swollen I suppose, and darkened by mud). In truth, 
there is not one single epithet of colour which we can 
affirm to be thoroughly defined. The word phoinix, 
which seems to intermix with xanthos, is also used as 
the equivalents of the words which would be rendered 
purple and red. Only a minute examination could 
collect the whole evidence in the case ; but I will close 
with observing that oil is once called rosy 3 , iron and 
wool violet, and oxen wine-coloured. But in the use 
of the words white and black, light and dark, which is 
abundant, Homer's eye seems rarely or never to go 
astray. 

1 See II. xxiv. 94. 2 Od. xii. 243. 3 II. xxiii. 186. 



2 

"J, 






-. 



